Need
by Asterixa
Summary: ZukoSokka mpreg. Sokka always needs... until something that should be impossible happens. When Zuko finds him in despair, what'll come of it?
1. Chapter 1

Hello everyone! I'm Asterixa, and this is my first A:TLA fanfic. This will be a **ZukoSokka yaoi mpreg**, and if you don't like any of that, there's a back button up there.

I don't own Avatar, and never will...

For clarification, in this fic there's no time pressure on the gang. There is no comet to avoid, because pregnancy takes a while. So lots of time will pass, okay?

Well, here we go!

Need

°

Sokka rubbed at his stomach, full and warm from the big meal that Aang had gotten them. The harbor town they were in was a sprawling expanse of low rectangular houses, and now at night it was asleep, few lights still burning and a couple of people on their way home. Sokka glanced behind himself to make sure he was alone; Katara, Aang and Toph should all be asleep by now, in the warehouse that they had snuck themselves into earlier in the evening.

Feeling pretty sure that he was alone, he stretched and pulled out his hairband, letting his hair fall around his face. He wandered to the bar district, the hard-packed dirt of the streets glowing in the moonlight. The bars were lit up brightly, and men sat in groups on the ground, gambling on dice.

Sokka felt his insides roil in longing. He needed it again.

This had been going on for almost the whole trip, this _need_. It was frightening but satisfying, and the pleasure after he had gotten it was amazing.

The others had no idea, and Sokka wasn't planning on telling them. Hell, Toph and Aang were _twelve_. He couldn't do that to them!

"Hey, want to play?"

He had reached one of the knots of men that were busy with dice. One of the three sitting in front of him was smiling at him, offering him the dice.

Sokka shook his head. "No thanks."

The man shrugged. "Suit yourself. Take a seat, you can watch and reconsider."

Sokka grinned and sat down next to him. It was an Earth Kingdom soldier, one of those bulky guys that looked as if they would be able to crush rocks even without Earthbending. He had the swarthiness of most of the mountain people, and thick dark hair.

Sokka's body ached for it, his whole self felt somehow... empty...

He knew what he needed and what would fill him, but he needed to be patient.

So he watched them play at the dice, and even joined in for a round or two. One of the men disappeared for a few minutes and then returned with glasses of cool beer.

Sokka watched the people come and go on the street, the pale golden wood of the bar walls and the raucous laughter from inside... the men fighting about the bottle of rum in the middle of the street, blood mixing with dust and turning the whole area into muddy sludge.

The tea-drinking men leaning against the wooden walls, their eyes alighting on Sokka and beckoning, but the Earth soldier had his arm around Sokka's waist and prior claim so he stayed there, watching the dice roll and the coins change hands.

He ached for it.

°

He woke up in the warm darkness of the soldier's bed, his body aching deliciously from it. He felt complete, the sickening feeling of emptiness gone. Slipping out from under the covers, he bent down to search for his clothes.

"Wait, kid."

Sokka started and turned. A candle flickered on, illuminating the paneled room and the tatami mats. The window's shutters were closed.

The soldier sat up in bed and beckoned to him.

Sokka shook his head. "I've got to go."

The soldier smiled. "Oh come on, one more time won't hurt. It won't take that long, you're too pretty for me to last long."

Sokka laughed softly despite himself and gave in.

The soldier was gentler than Sokka was used to from these encounters, his hands careful and sliding over all the right places. His eyes were dark with lust when he entered Sokka for the second time, and his groans and snarls were loud in the warm gloom of the room.

Sokka lay beneath him and watched the light of the candle flicker over the ceiling, feeling pleasure build slowly within him.

Afterwards he left feeling sated and warm inside, and when he reached the warehouse and his sleeping bag he didn't even worry whether Toph noticed his entrance as he usually did.

°(_this is a few months later_)°

"Hey Sokka, are you all right?"

Sokka smiled wanly and nodded, straightening from his crouch. "Yeah... I must have eaten something wrong."

His sister looked at him worriedly. "You sure you're okay?"

Sokka grinned. "Of course I am, Katara. Must have just overdone the eating--" his eyes widened and he froze.

Katara bent down. "Hey, Sokka? What---"

Sokka smiled slowly, jumped up and ran to where Aang was sitting at the campfire. "I smell... FOOD!"

Katara watched him go and shook her head. Crazy kid. She glanced back at the bushes, her eyebrows furrowing. The sour smell of vomit hung heavy in the air.

Toph, carrying a pail of water, walked past. "You know, princess, if _I_ have to start helping you guys, you might want to stick to your job, too."

Katara jumped and glared. "Yeah, yeah." She muttered, and went back to setting up the tent.

What was wrong with her brother? He had been sickly for _months _now, and it was totally unlike him. She had no idea what was going on, really.

They were too busy running from the Fire Nation and getting Aang versed in Water- and Earthbending to pay much attention to Sokka, who really didn't have anything to contribute to their Bending and usually disappeared whenever the girls started drilling Aang. Katara had noticed his disappearances and their lack of attention to him, but what could she do? Aang needed to learn, and she couldn't help that teaching him to Bend took a lot of attention and work.

And besides, Sokka hadn't ever spoken up. She doubted he minded; he got annoyed with all their Bending talk anyway.

She finished the tent and went to where Sokka was avidly watching Aang ladle stew into four bowls. Appa was lying on its massive side to one side of the camp, and Momo chittered and chattered in the tall trees that bordered on the clearing they were in. The moon was a dim sliver behind thick clouds.

Toph sat down next to the boys, her green clothing glowing in the firelight. Aang was deeply absorbed in serving out the food, making sure every bowl had the same amount of soup in it; it looked very irritating, and Katara could see Sokka's face scrunch up in annoyance as he watched the other boy peer into the bowls.

Finally they ate, and after the banking the flames and reviewing a bit of Earthbending with Aang, everyone went to sleep.

Or, tried to.

Sokka had been feeling... off... for a while, and though his need still came sometimes, especially when the others were absorbed in their Bending and he was unoccupied and feeling lonely, it was much less frequently and with less intensity. It was a different kind of emptiness than before, and he found himself feeling happier when his... acquaintances held him after it than during the act itself. Before, he had needed only the sweat and the panting of the sex.

And this puking was getting on his nerves. Sokka had always had a strong stomach; he'd gotten it from his father. They were both able to eat anything, and Sokka had never had food poisoning in his life. But it seemed like his stomach was losing its defenses, because he'd been puking his guts out for almost three months now. It would be freaking him out, but he refused to think much about it.

All that wouldn't matter, if he'd be able to sleep when he wanted to! He glared up at the moon through the wreath of clouds that hid it. Yuei was beautiful tonight, hidden behind that veil...

He was finding himself asleep at the weirdest times—when he was out fishing, in the middle of an argument with Katara—and at night he simply couldn't get his closed for longer than half an hour at a time. It was driving him nuts.

He squeezed his eyes shut and turned on his side, pulling his sleeping bag tight around him.

Ugh.

HE WANTED TO SLEEP, dammit...

°

They were making their leisurely way through the forest towards the sea, where Aang wanted to try out some of the larger-scale Waterbending moves. It was taking them days to move ten miles, and Appa was getting suspiciously fat.

Whenever they reached a village, they'd rummage in their pockets and end up either begging Toph for some of her hoarded gold coins, or sending Sokka to get a job. Aang and Katara were debating which choice to go with as they looked down onto a little woody valley where a small cluster of huts nestled into the trees.

Sokka was feeling empty and lonely again, and he decided to 'sacrifice himself', turning to the deliberating pair and saying, "I'll go find some work, it's okay."

Aang whooped. "Cool! We'll go down and find somewhere to wait for you."

Sokka nodded and started off. Behind him the others unlashed what they needed from Appa's saddle and shooed the bison into the shelter of the trees. It was an Earth Kingdom town, but you could never be too careful.

Sokka rubbed at his eyes and followed the dusty little trail down to the town. It was a really sad and tired little place, with children sitting around listlessly. The men were almost all gone, only a few younger ones working on their chores or jobs and the older ones sitting around in the shadow of their doorsteps drinking tea—all others were off at war. The women were inside, soft chatter and laughter drifting through the narrow streets.

The pine trees towered high around the town, impenetrable. Sokka gazed up at them, wondering where to look for work.

The decision was taken out of his hands when a cracked old voice to his right called, "Hey, boy, would you like to help me with my loads?"

Sokka looked down at the wrinkly old lady that had asked him. She was a real gnome, cracked and pinched and tiny. Half her teeth were missing and her skin had the consistence of old leather.

"Will you get me and my friends some free food?"

The lady cackled. "Your friends? I don't see anyone else."

"There's four of us."

She peered up at him. "All right."

He spent the afternoon hauling baskets and bundles of fragrant herbs and flowers from a wooden cart into the lady's hut. The house was a rickety thing, filled to bursting with plants in pots and hanging bundles of drying leaves, fruits, little jars of powder, flasks of mysterious dark liquids--

"Are you a healer?" he asked, once he'd dragged the last sack of prickly pine cones over her door step and sat down at her scroll-cluttered table to a cup of fragrant tea.

The old woman, busily sorting the massive basket of red berries he'd just had the honor to carry in into two piles—one smooth, one bruised—grinned toothlessly. "You could say that."

Sokka's eyes widened. "Good! Could you heal me?"

The lady stared at him. "Of what? You seem healthy to me, and besides, a healing would cancel out one of those free meals."

"That's a hard bargain. Couldn't you just look at me, and if I need a healing I'll get you the money for it?"

"I'm looking at you right now. There's nothing _wrong_ with you."

Sokka gritted his teeth. "I've been puking for three _months _now, constantly. I've never had anything like that before."

The woman threw a berry at him. "That's just the pregnancy. It's not a _sickness_, it's a _blessing_."

Sokka stared at her. "Lady. I'm a boy."

"I know. More tea?"

She was insane. He bit his lip hard enough to make it bleed and let her refill his cup.

"You're Water tribe, after all. Those men have always had some extra things. I knew one once, he had webbed feet and hands! Living in the ice and being ruled by the femaleness of the moon changes a man in ways others wouldn't be able to understand. Just like the Fire Nation's women, influenced by the masculine strength of the Sun, are sometimes infertile, the Water men gain some female abilities from their guardian spirits."

Sokka's eye was twitching. "So... you mean it. That I'm pregnant."

She grinned at him. "Yeah."

°

Well, that was chapter 1.

Was it any good?

Sokka is not a _slut_, he just... needs... sex... Oh my god I'm bad at explaining this. Whatever.

Please review, people!!!


	2. Chapter 2

Hey, I'm back!

I'm so glad I already got reviews, my Naruto fics aren't doing well at the moment because ff-net's alert services are down, so my subscribers aren't reviewing... arck.

A:TLA doesn't belong to me, and this is a **ZukoSokka mpreg yaoi fic**!!!

Need

°

Aang, Katara and Toph were searching for Sokka in the village when the shout came.

"WHAT?!"

Katara huffed something impatient, Toph made an irritated noise, and Aang cocked his head. "That sounded like Sokka!" he said, grinning.

The girls stared at him.

"We noticed, Aang." Toph said dryly.

The Avatar didn't register the sarcasm and hurried towards the source of the yell. Toph muttered something despairing and dragged her feet after him. Katara followed them, wondering what had crawled up Sokka's shirt _this _time.

The dusty little hut that they came to looked like it had seen many better days. A rickety old cart stood in front of it, the planks that it consisted of bowed apart and splintered. It was the last building on the street, an empty, sad little dirt path. The next house down was a small clean cabin in front of which two children were playing. They stared curiously at the three kids.

Aang knocked on the door of the hut. Not a second passed before it was yanked open by a wizened raisin-like little woman who glared up at them ferociously. "What?"

Aang scratched his bald head. The blue arrows were brighter than usual in the sunlight. "Um... we're looking for our friend. His name is Sokka...?"

The woman grinned, showing her lack of teeth. "Oh, so you're the hungry kids. Come in, I've already started on my trademark pine soup. It's very famous in the village, you know. You should feel honored."

She rambled on about the ingredients of the soup, letting them in. A heady mixture of scents slammed into them, dry musty herb smells with earthy unpleasant ones and a few fruity bouquets that seemed vaguely familiar... everywhere, plants, dried and dead or green, juicy and alive, sprouted out of the ceiling, between the floorboards, lay scattered across counters and chairs, pounded into bits in mortars... Next to Katara, Toph made a pained noise. Katara felt sorry for her; with one of her senses nonexistent, all of the girl's other ones had developed beyond normal, and her nose was much more sensitive than usual. It had to be painful for her among this mess of scent.

Katara peered through the gloom of the low room and saw Sokka sitting at the table in the middle of it, a cup in his hands. The woman noticed where he gaze was and stopped her explanation of the soup recipe. "OH, don't mind him, he's in shock at the moment."

"In shock?" Aang asked. "Why?"

The granny shrugged, eyes squinting mischievously. "Oh, nothing important."

Sokka convulsed at the table. Katara stepped towards him. "Hey, are you okay?"

Her brother looked up at her. His mouth was stretched into a hysteric smile. "No."

°

Sokka left the campsite as soon as the others started their calming warm-ups for the Bending lessons. They all stopped their routines, looking after him.

It had been three weeks since that old lady at the village, and they still hadn't found out what was wrong. Sokka's vomiting hadn't lessened, even though he tried to hide it from them, and Katara thought he was gaining weight, though she couldn't be sure.

Her brother had taken to disappearing from camp daily now, and whenever somebody asked him what was wrong—which was often—he'd ignore them and look away, usually to pet Momo. The lemur was spending a lot of time on the Water Tribe boy's shoulder these days.

Aang said softly, "I wonder what's wrong."

"We all do." Toph said tersely, and shifted her stance. "Let's get started."

Katara frowned at the Earth girl and cast a last worried glance at her brother's slim back, disappearing between the trees. Then she uncorked her water bag and let her Bending water flow out into the warm summer air.

Sokka found a quiet spot to sit and settled down to sleep, his usual fatigue taking over. Momo chittered into his ear, its soft tail curling around his shoulders as it snuggled into the crook of his neck, and soon it was quietly snoring.

Sokka slept uneasily, having nightmares of the healing woman's graphic explanations and sickening jokes about anatomical changes. He awoke barely half an hour after falling asleep and glared out over the leafy, needle-matted ground into the gnarled root of a nearby tree trunk.

Why did these strange things always happen to him?

He hadn't felt the real need for a bit now, though a softer feeling, a sort of longing for something warm to hug him, something big and masculine, was coming over him at the weirdest times. Frankly, it was weird, annoying, and downright frightening to be so... weak.

Because that was what it felt like, to have something growing inside him and not understanding why and not even knowing _who_... it felt unsettling, and it felt weak. He felt like a woman, and it was unpleasant, to say the least.

All right, no. He was lying to himself. Sokka looked down at his belly, at the slight bulge that pressed against his tunic. One of his hands slid down to cup the curve, and he grimaced in weak, false irritation as a wash of some heart-warming feeling soaked through him.

No, he liked it. He liked knowing that there was something growing inside him, something that his body had created, some kind of spark of life.

He didn't know what to tell the others. He didn't think they'd understand. And it was impossible to hide it from them; once his stomach truly swelled up, they would be able to put two and two together on their own. Especially Katara, who had healing abilities! Sokka had been extra careful not to get injured over the last few weeks—if his sister had had a reason to put her healing touch on him, who knew what she would have discovered...

He shivered. It felt strange and even lonelier than usual to keep a secret like this from his sister and his only real friends, friends that he'd been traveling with for a long time now. It scared him, too. Because he'd been so used to sharing all his pains and things with all of them, and now he was all... alone... with this huge, frightening responsibility.

A kid, dammit! A real, living kid!

He didn't even know who the father was. He had a few ideas, most notably the nice Earth Kingdom soldier who had had him twice and who had been so nice to him, but there was no way to be sure.

Sokka sat up, waking Momo and dislodging it from its comfortable perch. It chattered in annoyance and curled up in his lap, its tail lazily stroking circles on his belly. Sokka rolled his eyes.

He glared up at the trees for a while longer before heading back to camp to get his fishing things. Might as well make himself useful.

He'd think about what to do... later.

°

'Later' had stretched into two more months.

Sokka was now six months pregnant and Katara was worriedly monitoring his daily food intake, murmuring tactful things about how he really seemed to be eating too much and maybe he had some kind of bad spirit possessing his stomach. Aang was pretty oblivious, and Toph made snide remarks about the increased volume of his vibrations whenever they were walking.

Sokka still hadn't decided on what to do about it. Straight out telling them was out of the question; he simply couldn't, the secret was a secret by now, too well-kept to be told. The only real options were letting them find out on their own, or... leaving.

Sokka shivered in his sleeping bag. He still couldn't sleep well at nights.

To leave? He'd only been alone in the wilderness at the South Pole. And that was his home. Being alone in the vast forests and plains of the Earth Kingdom, where the only food he knew anything about was fish and meat, was a whole different story. And it would mean giving birth... alone.

He wasn't even comfy with the _thought_ of giving birth, much less doing it _alone_!

The healer had explained it all to him in utmost bloody and graphic detail—in the last month, a birth canal would form, and by the time that labor set in, his body would simply do it all automatically. Hopefully. But then, Sokka had never had the best of luck.

°

Um. Yes. Well.

I'm aware that it's all moving very fast, but I didn't want to just skip the birth and all, and so you'll have to bear with me.

Also, I know my style isn't truly suited to writing Avatar fics. It's a bit too cold. I usually write pretty dismal A/U Naruto stuff, so my writing style is rather harsh and unemotional. °sighs° Sorry!

Please r&r!


	3. Chapter 3

Need

°

Sokka really, really wanted some pickles.

Pickles...

With honey...

He stared mournfully up at the trees surrounding him. Why weren't there any pickles around? And why no honey?

Momo was clambering around in the tree he was leaning on, the needles rustling around it. It chattered incessantly at the grayish-blue sky.

The sun was hidden behind a cloud bank, and Sokka had taken to wearing his thick parka with the new cold. It was getting winter.

He looked down at where his belly strained against his tunic, the thick layers of the parka open over it. He was really getting big...

Pickles and honey. Sokka's eyes closed and he smiled wide. Mm.

A crash from behind him made Momo squeak in annoyance and burrow itself under Sokka's coat. The teen just muttered something exasperated. The girls and the Avatar had been training in the same place for almost a whole week now, and the ground and the little stream were definitely looking worse for wear.

Katara's voice sounded, irritated-- "Why can't I get the move to work?"

"Maybe you're not calm enough. You're usually able to do it." Aang answered.

Sokka heard his sister sigh in frustration and suddenly there were footsteps on the dusty carpet of needles, coming his way. He frowned. He wanted to be alone.

He was pretty sure that he would be leaving the group—as uncomfortable as he was with giving birth(alone!), somehow being bloody and gory in front of the rest of the crew seemed even more disturbing. And he really didn't want them to find out about his strange need, which had after all brought this on in the first place...

He was sort of used to the idea of being pregnant by now. He even caught himself cradling the swell of his belly at nights. Pathetic, yeah... but it just made him feel so nice to know that he was harboring life inside him.

Ugh. He sounded so mushy.

Katara sat down next to him in a flurry of dust and needles. "Hey."

Sokka nodded. "Hey."

She let down her hair and began fixing it, looking at him worriedly all along.

_This _was what Sokka especially hated. His sister was worried about him, but after the first few times she no longer asked him what was wrong. Instead, she _stared _at him and made little remarks on his weight and whatever else he was doing that seemed somehow out of place. He couldn't stand it.

He knew he was being moodier than usual, but he'd hoped that she wouldn't notice. Obviously she had. And right now he was having one of his sullen spells. He glared over at her, annoyed. "So why aren't you practicing?"

She tucked one of the loopy-things into her hairline and smiled at him. "Oh, a move wasn't working, so I came to check up on you."

"I don't need to be checked up on, but thanks."

She placed a hand on his forehead and he jerked away. There was the constant danger of her using her healing abilities... even beyond her finding out, it might also hurt the baby. "Don't."

Katara frowned. "Look, Sokka, you've been gaining weight, and lots of it, for months now, you still puke sometimes, you're moody and mean. And you fall asleep at the weirdest times. _Something _has to be wrong."

Sokka shook his head. "I'm _fine_. Just believe me, dammit."

"Sokka, that's not true! Look at you! You've—you've _blown_ _up_!"

He stared at her. She immediately clapped a hand over her mouth and looked apologetic.

Sokka stood up. Was she calling him ugly? Oh no. Not compatible with hormonal mood swings. Not at all.

°

Aang and Toph stood, at a loss, watching Katara rant worriedly.

"And now he's just run off! What are we supposed to do? I can't just lose him, I don't know what's going on—this is driving me crazy! All I said was something about his weight and his being unwell--"

Toph interrupted her. "He probably just wants some privacy. Let's go to sleep, he'll be back."

Katara glared at her. "You don't get it, do you? I'm _worried_ about him. He's my brother!"

Toph shrugged. "He'll be fine! He just needs some time without Benders all around him. I'll bet he's just feeling really useless at the moment."

Aang followed the girls to their campfire. He gripped his staff and gazed into the forest. What had happened to Sokka? He had changed so much in the last months...

Appa lowed behind him, nuzzling his shoulder with his massive nose. Aang smiled up at him. "You're right, I shouldn't worry too much. I'm sure he'll be fine."

Across the clearing, Toph drew her Earth tent up out of the ground. Katara was undoing her hair.

Aang curled up in the crook of one of the bison's elbows and listened to the girls going about their bedtime rituals.

Sokka would be back. He had to be.

Right?

Later that night Aang awoke to the sound of Katara crying.

°

Momo had followed him. Sokka didn't know whether to be happy about that or not.

By the time the fight with Katara had been reaching its climax, Sokka was already thinking rationally. He'd though that it would make a good time to leave. There was even a reason!

So he'd grabbed his bedroll and gotten out of there.

Now he was sitting on a ledge with his sleeping bag spread out beneath him, looking down at the little hamlet beneath him. There were five huts, tops, and no lights burned in the pitch-black night.

It would be good to have people around.

He had three more months, if all went well. Hopefully the others wouldn't look for him. Katara usually respected his wishes, and so did Aang, and he doubted Toph cared all that much—if he was lucky, they'd surmise that he'd just had enough.

Or maybe they just wouldn't find him! That'd also be good.

Momo snuggled deeper into his hip , its tail waving lazily in sleep.

Sokka rubbed his belly. He'd go down for some food tomorrow, and then he'd figure out what to do with himself for three months.

Three months! So much waiting!

°

He was scared out of his mind.

A heavy, twisting tug on his spine had woken him up, and now, three hours later, the painful feeling was coming more frequently.

Sokka wasn't that stupid; he knew very well what was going on.

It was the _when_ that was bothering him. Frustrated, he took a deep breath to recover from the latest gut-wrenching contraction and counted off the months. It had been eight.

Eight months! This was much too early! What—he gasped into the darkness of the little cave he'd taken as a winter home as a new contraction rippled through him. Momo chattered worriedly in the dark, patting Sokka's swollen belly.

Why was it so early—if it had been on schedule, then winter should have been ending and it would have been much easier to go for help if there were complications. But in this weather, with snow burying the mountain and the trees in treacherous white drifts and filling up the entrance of the cave so that Sokka had to dig himself out every morning...

There was a small crack in the thick stone in one corner of the cave that was just big enough to supply it with a circulation of fresh air, but without digging himself out of the entrance Sokka couldn't really survive very long in here. He had food and water from the snow and his stores, but the firewood was dwindling and he'd been putting gathering more off for days now.

There was very dim light filtering in from the ceiling crack; it was early, early morning. Sokka had awoken from the first contraction while it was still dark, and while they'd been infrequent he'd managed to start the fire and make some of the tea he'd gotten from the hamlet in the valley.

He shivered in his parka and sleeping bag. The old lady's explanations came back to him and he grimaced, petting Momo worriedly.

This whole birth canal thing sounded very unpleasant. He arched and nearly screamed as the worst contraction till now tore up his spine.

It _was _unpleasant.

During the lull between pains, he wondered whether the pregnancy would heal him of the need. That would be pretty cool...

He had to stay on track! Was there anything else he had to do, besides wait? The healer had said something about being calm.

CALM?

Very funny. He doubted _she'd _ever been pregnant.

Sokka scratched Momo's floppy ears and watched the fire crackle. His back arched with each new painful jerk at his spine. He had a sinking feeling that this would take a very long, painful time. There was so much stupid waiting involved with this stuff.

°

When he woke up, the first thing that struck him was the rawness of his throat. He kept his eyes closed and wondered why his vocal chords hurt so much. It was quiet around him, and he was warm.

A soft cough sounded into the silence and suddenly a piercing whine broke the calm. It was a sound that woke something in any being, a noise that called forth instinctive reactions—the cry of a baby.

Sokka remembered now why his throat hurt so much. He'd screamed it to shreds.

He opened his eyes. It was pitch-black, the coals in the fireplace glowing softly.

The slight weight on his chest continued crying and Sokka carefully hugged it to himself. He vaguely remembered wrapping the tiny figure in cloth, but not much more—he'd been weak and hazy from blood loss.

He staggered to his feet, dislodging another weight—Momo—from its perch on his shoulder. The lemur chattered happily about Sokka's waking.

Sokka bit his lip at the pain that radiated through him from between his legs, and stoked the coals back to life. The child had stopped crying, hicupping softly against his chest.

Sokka scooped some snow into a tin cup and set it on a flat stone next to the slowly growing flames. He peered down at the child in his arms and his eyes widened.

The baby was wrinkled and its eyes were still tightly closed, but—Sokka felt something. Something like a surge of... love? He wasn't sure, but it was amazing and deep and reminded him somewhat of the times when he and the crew had had to do with the spirit world, the same kind of intangible sensation that something was there, but invisible.

It was a boy. Sokka hadn't thought of names or anything like that—the months of waiting had been spent storing food for the winter and had ended up being full after all. There hadn't been any boredom, especially not with his constant fatigue.

He'd come across a few rumors of the Avatar, but if the gang was looking for him then they weren't trying very hard. He looked back down at his son. It didn't matter now.

Momo climbed onto his shoulder and chattered. Sokka grinned weakly. "This is my kid, Momo," he said. His voice was a destroyed rasp from all his screaming.

The baby's hiccups grew louder and it started whimpering again. Sokka wrinkled his nose—he had cut the kid's umbilical cord in the same pain-induced trance in which he'd wrapped him, and hadn't washed him or anything. Carefully taking the tin cup off the stone and dipping a strip ripped off of his tunic into the now hot water, he carefully cleaned the baby.

The child quieted and snuggled into him, and Sokka's mind jumped to the next problem. How would he feed him?

He knew that the healer had told him something about it, something that had shocked him. He'd screamed after she'd told him. But what had it been?

The baby awoke and snuggled deeper into his chest, his pursed little lips latching onto Sokka's nipple.

Sokka's eyes widened in the glow of the fire as the weirdest feeling ever came over him.

No way.

The baby was drinking from his nipple.

No _way._

Sokka managed not to yell. Instead he let out a little strangled noise and wrapped the baby in fresh cloths, rags that he'd gotten down in the village and had actually been planning on making a new tunic out of. He threw the dirty rags into another corner of the cave.

Unable to believe it, he stared down at the busily suckling mouth on his nipple and shivered at the strange feeling. It was in no way sexual; Sokka had felt completely different when his partners kissed or sucked him there. No, it was just... strange.

And painful. "Ow!" The sharp ridges of the child's gums closed too tightly on his skin and Sokka automatically shifted the boy's weight and guided his mouth to his other nipple.

This was...

Momo chattered and petted the child carefully, its massive green eyes amazed.

Sokka shook his head slightly and leaned back against the cave wall. He was hungry but not hungry enough to move again. The child in his arms was still suckling.

Somehow, the healer had been right when she'd said his body would do everything automatically. It had gone painfully but all right. The earliness of the birth worried him slightly, but if he was really exact then it had actually been eight months and two weeks, and that wasn't _too_ early...

Well, it had been eight months and two weeks from the night with the Earth Kingdom soldier, and Sokka was considering just accepting him as the father. There was no need to complicate it all. Sokka could do this on his own.

He somehow didn't feel like returning to the crew. He felt... different, with the child in his arms. He didn't need them, and they didn't need him; Aang needed to learn Bending all the elements, and Sokka couldn't help him there. Katara had a crush on Aang, and Toph... Toph was Toph. She didn't need Sokka!

Sokka looked down when the warm tugging feeling left his nipple. The child had a little trail of milk staining his chin as he curled up tighter, one tiny perfect fist tightening in his blanket and the other pressing against Sokka's skin, warm and trembling.

Sokka smiled slowly and pulled the sleeping bag tight around them. Momo chattered softly and burrowed in around them, its tail curling around the baby and its ears twitching as it settled into slumber.

The boy watched them and decided that his child wouldn't be named until he was sure.

Really, really sure.

°

Okay! I personally like this chapter. And the next one will finally contain some Zuko. I think.

Pleeeeeeeeeeeease review!

Till next time!


	4. Chapter 4

For some more clarification; Zuko still has his ship. Yeah.

**Thanks for the reviews! Love you all!**

Need

°

The banished prince of the Fire Nation watched his uncle peer into the shops lining the dusty street, grimacing in frustration. Two of his crew were walking behind them, and he'd ordered the rest to take care of restocking the ship.

The last six months the Avatar had been elusive, moving in a vague, random course with no real goal that anyone could see. It was extremely irritating because the flying bison would appear in the Earth Kingdom one week, and then suddenly rumors of sightings five hundred leagues to the east would pop up.

Basically, Zuko wasn't making much progress. Azula was sending him sweet-worded letters with threats of 'visiting his expedition', and he was under more pressure than ever to find the Airbender.

The town they'd stopped at was one of the larger harbor cities, at the northern tip of the Earth Kingdom. It was still cool, summer late in coming. The few plants and willowy trees were barely budding. The streets were lively, vendors with their wares displayed in shoulder-cases calling out prices, the small shops that lined the paths showcasing their products, delicious scents of food drifting on the cold wind.

As with most Earth Kingdom towns, this one was not conquered by the Fire Nation, but neutral. This allowed most cities to continue their trade and, if they paid the taxes of the Fire Nation, to stay safe. And while Zuko and his crew got a lot of hostile looks, there were no threats beyond the occasional rude whisper—which Zuko's men, riled up from long weeks at sea, quickly and efficiently punished.

Iroh stopped short all of a sudden, and Zuko glanced at him. "What is it, Uncle?"

The squat Firebender smiled widely at his nephew and gestured to the shop in front of them. The steady flow of green and blue-clad people around them left them generous space, mothers shielding their children and workers huffing under their loads to avoid them. "Look, Zuko. I must see if they have a new teapot for me, the one on the ship is cracked."

Zuko's eyes narrowed and he tried very hard not to snarl. Why hadn't he stayed with the men to stock up the ship? Why?

He followed his uncle into the store; it was a dim, dusty little room, cluttered with all sorts of old things. Old toys, cutlery, porcelain, statues, pipes, incense burners... A young woman in a soft gray gown stood in a corner, watching them with a frightened expression. A brown leather belt was slung around her hips, and it jingled whenever she moved.

The two soldiers had stayed outside, and Zuko watched his uncle look around, bored. The man peered at the wares, muttering under his breath. He pulled some things out, looked them over critically, and placed them back into their original positions. The girl flinched whenever he did so, making nervous motions as if to say, 'Careful!'.

The pale sunlight that fell in through the narrow doorway darkened slightly as another customer stepped in. They were short and slim, dressed in a heavy blue parka that was trimmed with white fur and hung open over a darker blue, frayed tunic and leggings. A small, cloth-wrapped bundle was held tight to their chest. Zuko felt like he knew those clothes from somewhere, but it wasn't until the person stepped past him to look at a basket of baby toys that it clicked.

"You!" he hissed.

Blue eyes flashed to him, shocked, and the kid flinched back. "Zuko." his voice was different, somehow... more mature.

His dark, chocolaty skin shone smooth in the dim light, and his hair was no longer put up in that strange ponytail. It had grown out, and reached his upper back by now, wild and windblown. His eyes glared hate and anger at Zuko.

Zuko reached out and grabbed the collar of the kid' tunic. Finally, a real, tangible clue to the Avatar's whereabouts! "Where's the Avatar?"

The kid's grip on the bundle in his arms tightened and he tried to pull away, muttering, "Jeez, are you _still _on about that? I have no idea. Let me go."

Zuko snarled. "Of course you know where he is, you travel together. Where is he hiding? Is he in town or did he crawl into the forest to hide?"

Iroh had found a teapot and was paying the young woman, not interested in the conflict going on at the door. The girl was watching them, looking panicky.

The boy couldn't seem to let go of the bundle in his arms to free himself, and said loudly, "I don't know where he is. Now let me go!"

Zuko pulled him closer and stared into deep sapphire blue. The kid was stubborn, his lips in a thin line and his eyes narrow. "Let me go," he repeated.

Somehow Zuko remembered him as more... fiery. He tightened his grip on his collar and said challengingly, "Last time I saw you you were a bit braver. Don't feel like fighting now, do you?"

The kid snarled and again his arms tightened around the thing in his grip. "Shut up, Zuko."

Zuko felt a tap on his shoulder and glared over at his uncle. "What?" he snapped, annoyed.

The older man smiled and showed him a brown paper package. "I have my teapot. Can we continue this on the ship? I am hungry, and I fear it'll rain soon."

Zuko glanced at the kid in his grasp. "Yes, we can."

°

The baby coughed, and Sokka could hear him prepare to wail.

Sokka pulled him close, willing him to silence. Momo had followed him onto the ship after it had disappeared for a while in town, and now it hung from the ceiling of the dim room and chattered worriedly at him.

The room wasn't a real dungeon, more like a storage chamber. He was tied up—expertly, there was no chance of getting out of these knots—to cast-iron rings that protruded from the wall beneath the high porthole window. The rope chafed at his wrists and his throat felt tender from Zuko's grip on it in the curio shop.

That guy really needed to learn how to cool down.

The door of the tiny room was iron—everything on this ship seemed to be iron—and when the soldiers had pushed him in Sokka had seen that it was at least twice as thick as he was. Which, now that the roundness of the pregnancy was gone, actually wasn't all that much. But it still made him feel very securely locked in.

Sokka knew that there was a guard outside the door; he could hear and see the heavy boots stomp around through the crack beneath the iron entrance. The passage outside it was lit with torches, and the glow shone into the room in a sharp rectangle.

No more light came through the porthole window; the sun had just set. Sokka guessed that he'd been in here for a few hours now. It was a miracle that the baby had slept as long as he had.

Sokka pushed aside the blanket he was wrapped in. The baby's eyes darted curiously around the dark room, the orbs big and brightly green. Sokka was pretty sure about his parentage by now; the Earth soldier's eyes had been a shocking emerald, pinning him to the bed.

The child's skin was lighter than Sokka's but it could still get darker. He didn't know all that much about how it would mature. He was only certain that the ebony fluff that licked the delicate skull would still lighten, though; his own hair had done that.

He was _so_ lucky that Zuko hadn't looked too closely at his load. If he had noticed the child... well, he probably still would, but—Sokka shook his head angrily. He really always ended up in the worst situations.

And the stupidest thing was that he really _didn't _know where Aang and the others were. He hadn't looked for or wanted to look for them at all in the two months or so since the baby's birth. He'd taken his bedroll and a few rations and made his way towards the sea once his body had healed enough for him to walk. Once he'd reached the coast, he'd traveled from town to town without any direction.

In a way, he missed the South Pole. But on the other hand, he didn't feel as if it was _home_ anymore. He missed the familiarity of the broad white ice and the jagged crags, but he also knew that it wouldn't be the same as before if he returned now. The child had changed something.

Sokka pulled up his tunic and pressed the baby close, feeling the strange sensation that he still hadn't gotten used to run through his skin. The child suckled energetically, his eyes squeezed shut in the gloom.

Momo went silent suddenly and Sokka heard a new set of footsteps outside the room door. Probably Zuko, ready for after-dinner entertainment... Sokka tried not to snort out loud. He glanced down at the child worriedly. If he forced him to stop drinking, he would cry—but if he let him continue, whoever was out there would see...

He really didn't understand how the soldiers hadn't noticed the child when they'd thrown him in here. And he didn't know what they'd do if they found out—certainly nothing good, this was Fire Nation after all.

Argh! What had he done to piss off the spirits this badly? This was basically the worst sequence of events—getting pregnant, which shouldn't even be _anatomically possible, _having the baby, and now getting caught, with a two-month-old son, by the crazy prince that was looking for someone that Sokka had no idea how to find.

Tch. Just perfect.

The child was still drinking from his nipple. Sokka looked at the door nervously, hoping against hope that the child would stop feeding or that whoever was out there wouldn't come in--

The sound of iron tumblers moving and hinges creaking brought an exasperated grimace to his face. No luck. Really _no_ luck.

He tried to hide the child by covering him up, but it was of course useless. He carefully pulled him away from his chest and pulled his tunic down. He didn't want them knowing just how weird the whole thing was.

His son began crying as soon as the light from the intruder's torch fell on him. Sokka pulled him close, straining against the rope. He heard a soft, surprised grunt and squinted into the torchlight, trying to see who it was. The guard in front of the door was staring in, curious.

"A... baby?" It was Zuko, all right, the scratchy cold rasp incredulous.

Sokka scoffed and pulled his son closer. The child was calmer now, its cries dwindling. "No, a rhino. Of course it's a baby."

The Firebender knelt down and glared at Sokka. "Watch your mouth."

Sokka tsked and said, "Look, Zuko. I have no idea where the Avatar is. I've been traveling apart from them for months now. Okay? So you can let me go."

Zuko's eyes narrowed, gleaming yellow in the stark firelight. The discolored skin around his left eye was fascinating in the dancing shadows and brightness. "I don't believe you, fool. You'll stay here until I find out where the Avatar is, and—"

"Wha--"

"_And_ if you refuse to cooperate, well..." Zuko's glance flashed to the child in Sokka's arms. "There'll be a punishment."

Sokka watched the prince leave and closed his eyes tightly. Damn it all to _hell!_

°

"The boy has a baby with him?" Iroh sounded interested, his eyes still on the Pai Sho board. His opponent was the old ship's advisor, a beady-eyed, rickety little man who was trying feverishly to win.

Zuko shrugged. "Yeah. Surprised me at first."

His uncle looked up. His eyebrows were furrowed worriedly. "Nephew, you should not be leaving a small child down there in the damp and dark. The boy will not be able to keep it warm. It could catch a fever, and a fever at that age is easily fatal."

Zuko crossed his arms and stared out of the windows. It was pitch-black outside. "Well, I have no one to give the baby to. It'll have to stay down there. My men have better things to do than to play wet nurse."

Iroh's expression changed and he grinned wide. "Oh, but I could take it! I've always loved children."

Zuko stared at him, deeply disturbed. His uncle was really missing a few important marbles. "... as long as you don't kill it, Uncle. I need it as persuasion."

Iroh's eyes twinkled.

Honestly, they twinkled.

"Thank you, Zuko. I'll be sure to take good care of the child."

Zuko snarled slightly and turned away. His uncle was so strange sometimes.

°

Okaaaaaaaaaaay, how'd you guys like that?

I don't actually know why Iroh has the child all of a sudden. Oh well.

HAPPY NEW YEARS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!


	5. Chapter 5

**catc10: **Yay! I converted an Mpreg-hater!!! Glad you liked it!

**Thanks for the reviews! Love you all!**

Need

°

Sokka awoke from his uneasy sleep as soon as the door creaked open. He ached all over and the his face felt stiff, as if he'd yelled and cried a lot.

He started, his wrists jerking against the rope binding him, when he realized how empty his arms were. The night crashed back on him and he glared up at the soldier coming in.

They had taken the child away!

Sokka hadn't been able to fight them because of his bonds, struggling against the rope to get at Zuko and the old geezer with him. The old man had made false promises to take good care of the baby, and the Water Tribe teen had yelled until his throat felt like it had after the birth.

It was already morning; clear sunlight shone in through the porthole. The rusty reddish-black iron of the room creaked and shuddered; Sokka could hear sailors on deck and outside the room, calling orders to each other. They were casting off.

The soldier, dressed in the stiff and terrifying livery of the Fire Nation, pushed a tin plate over to the boy. Sokka glanced down at the grayish-green slush that sopped over the bowl's rim and muttered hoarsely, "Dog food?"

The soldier laughed harshly. It was the same guard still, a tallish Firebender with sharp, almost elfin features and hair in a short topknot. His helmet dangled from one pale hand and his eyes were vicious and narrow. "Only the best for you," he joked, his thin lips curving into a grin.

Sokka coughed some of the scratchiness out of his throat and muttered, "Where's m—the kid?" He didn't want them to know that he was _his—_it was bad enough that they knew he cared for him. The more they knew about the depth of his relationship to the baby, the more leverage they had against him.

The soldier shrugged and closed the door with a loud crash. "No idea," his voice echoed from behind it, tinny and distorted.

Sokka glared at the bowl of 'food', tense. He snarled under his breath suddenly and kicked the slop away. He needed to get to his child.

But how?

°

Zuko's eyebrow twitched. He ate a bit faster, trying to get his breakfast over with.

Across the table from him, Iroh and the ship's advisor were cooing over the baby. They had sent a soldier back into town last night, shortly after prying the child out of the Water Tribe teen's angry arms, to get baby supplies and a cow. Zuko had no idea where the soldier had found the cow, but the animal was standing on deck, tied to an iron ring, lowing pathetically.

The ship belched to life suddenly, the first cloud of sooty smoke coughing out of the black chimney. The craft moved slowly out of the harbor.

Zuko liked the feeling of power it gave him to sit or stand here, in the highest room on board, only a wall separating him from where billowing soot and flames danced out of the chimney, watching the glittering water as the ship left it behind. It was intoxicating to know that he ruled over the ship completely, and it gave him a taste of what a wonderful feeling it had to be to rule over an entire Nation.

But to do that, he needed the Avatar.

His eyes narrowed and he swallowed the last of his rice and fish, casting his uncle an annoyed look. The man was playing with a rattle, shaking it in front of the child's eyes.

The baby had screamed its lungs out after the soldier had wrested it from the boy's grip, and Iroh had calmed it down after what seemed like ages using some milk and toys. Zuko's head still ached slightly from the abrasive wails of the thing.

Iroh was grinning, looking happy. Zuko didn't know why he was so pleased to take care of a screaming little monster, but that was his own thing.

He stood. He'd try to get something out of the Water Tribe kid now.

The bright light that glowed into the control room warmed the place, the low table and the Pai Sho board gleaming in it. The light glanced off of the sea, making it look as though the ship were floating in an ocean of hot whiteness. The deck was alive with the crew, men hurrying over the black iron and coiling up the ropes that had bound them to the harbor.

Behind the ship, the flat brown roofs of the town spread out at the shore, the green expanse of the Earth Kingdom stretching out behind it, forest upon forest in deep green waves.

Zuko moved to the door, glancing back at the two men and the child. The baby's deep green eyes—was that color real?--flicked to his and it made a gurgling sound.

Iroh looked up and called, "Zuko! Come here."

Zuko grimaced. "Why? I want to interrogate that kid now."

Iroh beckoned again, and reluctantly Zuko stepped closer. "What?"

He stumbled back as his uncle pressed the round little creature into his arms. He barely managed to hold on to it. The bright big eyes crinkled up and the baby laughed softly. Zuko snarled. "Uncle! What--"

Iroh just smiled. "I want to play Pai Sho now, and if you are going down to speak with the Water Tribe boy, you might as well take the child with. It is not good to separate parent and child for long."

Zuko shook his head, his eyes narrow and his hands awkward around the delicate creature in his arms. "They can't be parent and child. The boy can't be much older than fifteen. And," he said, angrily, "I don't want to give it back to the boy! The sense of it is to make him answer my questions in return for seeing the baby, all right? Now take it back."

Iroh shook his head. "No. He likes you."

Zuko looked down at the weight in his arms. The baby had curled up in the crook of his left elbow and was smiling up at him, its feet pedaling the air. The men had dressed it in new clothes, a little green thing.

Zuko rolled his eyes and cursed his loyalty to his uncle. "All right, I'll let him see it." After all, maybe the night without the kid had been enough. If the boy still wouldn't speak, he'd take it away for good.

The ship's advisor threw a few rags to him and Zuko barely caught them with his free hand. "What is _this_ for?"

The wrinkly old man smiled serenely and started setting up the Pai Sho board. "We have just fed the baby, its diapers will need to be changed."

No way.

Zuko made a half-choked sound and decided to leave before any more frightening paraphernalia was thrown his way. The baby murmured softly and tumbled around in his grip.

He made his furious way down to the row of storage rooms that he kept disobedient sailors and prisoners in, for a lack of other options. The few subordinates he passed gave him curious looks, and Zuko snarled "_What?_" at them all. Their nervous starts made him feel a bit better.

The child gurgled happily, its tiny hands playing with the decoration of Zuko's armor, as he reached the door to the Water Tribe teen's prison. The soldier guarding the room carefully hid all shock after his initial jump and amazed expression.

Smart man.

Zuko muttered irritably, "Open the door,"

Before the hinges even started creaking, a hoarse shout came from inside the room. "Damn you, Zuko! Give the child back!"

The baby started in Zuko's arms and made a confused noise, its bright eyes wide. The soldier opened the door fully and Zuko stepped inside.

The teen was sitting with his back to the wall, his wrists resting on the rough steel of the floor, the rope stained with blood around them. His hair was mussed and wild, and he yanked at the rope every so often, glaring up at Zuko.

The baby squealed in Zuko's arms and twisted around, reaching towards the kid.

The boy's eyes widened and he said coldly, "Give him to me."

"Where is the Avatar?" Zuko said harshly. For a lack of anything else to do with it—hell, he couldn't exactly interrogate the kid with a baby in his hands—he dropped it into the kid's waiting arms.

The teen pulled it close and smiled down at it. The baby laughed happily and nuzzled his chest. A slim brown hand stroked carefully over the delicate skull, the skin rubbed raw at the wrist from the coarse rope. The boy's eyes, the deep blue shining in the warm sunlight that fell in a rectangular beam to illuminate his slender, crouching form, glared up at Zuko.

The prince repeated his question sharply.

The kid hissed, "I don't _know_."

Zuko called fire into his hand. A dancing tongue of flame appeared in his palm and he held it close to the boy's face, threatening. He could feel the fire straining to burn and destroy the smooth brown skin that trembled so tantalizingly close to it. "Tell me."

The kid just stared up at him, his eyes wide and afraid and his whole body tense.

Zuko let the flame rise a bit higher, feeling anger boil inside him. "The longer you stay silent, the longer the brat will stay with my uncle."

The boy flinched and murmured, "Zuko—I really don't know, I just _don't._ Just believe me, dammit!"

This was going to take quite some time. Stubborn people always made Zuko angry; he'd have to rein in his temper.

°

"He's quite the eater—isn't he, Zuko?"

It was night by now, and Iroh had the baby on his knee, feeding it with a twisted, milk-soaked corner of cloth. Zuko just growled in response. His head hurt.

That obstinate kid! He'd have to go out on deck to vent some of his rage after eating. Fire was pulsing through him, all the tension and anger from a whole day of trying to get a mulish boy to talk pent up inside.

He finished his meal and glanced out the windows of the low room. The night sky was black and dark.

Iroh had shifted the baby to his shoulder and was patting its back. Zuko curled his lip as the brat made a disgusting noise and puked up slimy milk.

Ugh.

Iroh hummed serenely under his breath and bounced the child around on his lap. He looked up at Zuko and asked curiously, "Have you asked how or why the boy is traveling with the child?"

Zuko grimaced. "No." Damn, just thinking of the kid made him angry.

"Oh well." The man's eyes brightened."Well, you can hold the child for now. I'll be playing Pai Sho, and we already tried to teach him yesterday, but he has no patience for it. Much like you, actually," he chuckled.

Zuko shook his head sharply. "NO. Keep that brat away from me. I'm going to train." He stood and stalked out of the room.

"But Zuko!" Iroh's voice echoed after him.

Zuko made his way through the smoky torch-lit passages of his ship, breathing in deeply when he finally reached the cool fresh air of the deck. A few of his men were sitting or standing at the railing and sharing a bottle of whiskey amongst themselves. They shifted uneasily at his arrival, but didn't make any move to leave. The glow of the light from the ship's control room illuminated the deck slightly, enough for Zuko to see the men's faces and enough to dim the stars.

Zuko shifted into a fighting stance and let the Fire play, the wild element tossing and turning and jumping from his fingers. He carved arcs of flame into the cool air and let a flickering red-golden dragon curve through the sky. Slowly the tension left his body and the tentative control he'd had over the flame strengthened.

He knew that the men were watching him, and he felt pride creep into his display. While it was true that he didn't even come close to matching Azula or his uncle—or anyone of the royal family, for that depressing matter...--he was an exceptional Firebender when compared to the common soldiers and citizens of the Fire Nation. He ended the relaxing practice with a jet of flame that held the last of his anger, stabbing up into the sky and through the thick swath of smoke that hung high above the ship.

The men at the railing muttered their admiration and saluted him, and he stalked back inside, not acknowledging the show of respect.

The tense and dangerous fury was gone now, and the emptiness of it left him feeling pleasantly tired. He followed the low reddish-black corridors to the heavy iron door of his bedchamber. Once inside, he leaned back against the door and stared at the altar that flanked his bed.

The candles were out, the sole source of light within the room a single torch that was held in a sconce above the bed. Zuko extended a hand in a quick snapping motion and all of them flamed into life. The banner of the Fire Nation glowed starkly black and red behind them.

Zuko started undoing the straps of his armor and placing the pieces on the special stand that stood next to the door. He was unbuckling the belt when the pain hit.

_Shit!_ He gasped incoherently, one hand reaching out to support himself on the wall. The rough grainy iron anchored him and brought him back to full awareness. The pain in his head, heart, abdomen continued lancing through him.

He tore off the rest of his armor and his shirt and stumbled to the bed, groping for the pitcher of water standing next to the low mattress and gulping half of it down. The agony throbbed in his muscles and he felt as though his body were tearing apart.

He lay back, his chest heaving, the sheets cool against his sweaty skin. The pain subsided slightly, to a level that he was used to.

Zuko hadn't felt this for almost a year now, the roiling agony inside him—but before that, it had been common, an eternal companion. He couldn't even remember when it had first started, it had been so second nature that he'd never even imagined life without it. He'd considered it normal.

But when, one night, it had suddenly vanished, he'd realized just how much better it was without it—his muscles had relaxed from their constant state of tense agony, and he'd barely been able to believe it. For the first few weeks he'd waited with bated breath for the pain to return, waited for the familiar screeching and scratching ache deep in his bones.

It hadn't returned, and Zuko had gotten used to the freedom of breathing without feeling as if there were hooks caught in his lungs.

And now? Now it was back.

And it hurt even worse than he remembered. He bit his lip as a new wave of it crashed over him. He knew himself well enough to be sure that he'd get used to it within a few hours. He had no other choice, and after years of incessant pain Zuko's body was trained and controlled by him with an iron fist—it wouldn't dare be weak.

Why had it come back? He felt anger rise. Why couldn't it have just stayed away?

A soft snarl broke through his lips as it rose in intensity and he shook his head, watching the shadows of the candles dance on the walls.

°

Sokka awoke alone in his prison.

His body ached with the need that he'd thought had disappeared.

He hadn't felt it in its true, unadulterated form since the night of his child's(supposed) conception. The needs after that night had been different, softer. And when they had stayed that way after the baby's birth, even disappearing completely for the last few weeks, he'd thought with relief that they were finally—finally!--gone.

Sokka arched. Dammit. His eyes closed in a vain attempt to control himself.

If anything, it was worse than before.

He gasped and leaned back against the cold wall, stretching out his legs. One of his feet touched the slop bucket and the other landed in the small pool of torchlight that shone under the door.

Maybe it was because he was separated from the child? He moaned softly as the lust pulsed through him and begged to be sated.

He couldn't stand much more of this.

Normally he'd go out and find someone, anyone, to quench his thirst, someone to throw him up against a wall or onto a bed and--

But here he was, tied up and caught, and who here would want to--

"Oh damn--" he groaned as the feeling of painful emptiness strengthened so badly that he could barely think anymore—he needed someone inside of him, _now_.

"Hey, kid, what's going on?" It was the soldier.

Sokka couldn't answer, his stomach roiling with need. "Agh--"

The door creaked open and the guard, helmet off again, stepped in with a torch. He peered down at Sokka.

There was silence, but for the ragged breathing of the Water Tribe kid and the soft splashing of the waves against the iron side of the ship. The soldier shifted, and as with all men that Sokka encountered in this state, he saw the need and reacted.

The door closed quickly and the torch disappeared. Sokka saw it rolling away down the corridor through the crack under the door, and then there were hot lips on his in the darkness, and the clang of armor being dropped.

Sokka didn't care that this guy was Fire Nation, at least not at the moment.

He'd care tomorrow. Right now...

Right now he focused on the hard calloused hands that were pushing his thighs apart, and the heat that was building in his body.

°

Somewhere else in the ship, Zuko awoke with his pain on a bearable level. He grumbled in half-sleep and turned over, to fall deeper into slumber.

°

°

°

Um yes. It's a...weird hand movements **_CONNECTION!!!_**

Yeah. Well. And yes, the child still has no name. I didn't know how to slip it in, but it still doesn't. Sokka isn't sure yet, it seems.

**Please review!!! **And—oh, right! Do you guys want the kid to have Earthbending powers or Waterbending powers? Should it get the Bending from Sokka's heritage or the nameless Earth soldier?

Hmm?

And I repeat, SOKKA IS NOT A WHORE.

Much Love and stuff!


	6. Chapter 6

°winces° I've got three reviews in favor of Waterbending and two in favor of Earthbending. I'm just not sure... dammit. So far, the most convincing arguments have been made for Earthbending... it _would _be interesting.

...but it's outnumbered...

Oh damn, we'll just have to wait and see. I'm a Libra, okay? I'm allowed to vacillate my brains out!

Oh and I cracked up SO bad about all the protection reviews. Especially the 'Sky-Bison condoms'. Awesome. I doubt they used any, but I wouldn't get Sokka pregnant again THIS soon. Thanks for making my day, you guys!

Need

°

Zuko rubbed at the back of his neck, glaring out over the ship railing. It was perfect weather, the sky a solid blue and no cloud in sight. His uncle and the ship's advisor had had the soldiers carry the table and the Pai Sho board out on deck and he could hear Iroh's quiet contemplative mumbling behind him.

The crew was relaxed, playful and tossing insults back and forth as they went about their duties. The man whose duty it was to tend to the coal burner was bellowing out a terrible rendition of some ancient Fire Nation lovesong and one of the younger sailors, a man with one hand missing and a severe limp—something had happened with a snaketiger, or so he boasted—was singing the accompaniment up towards the chimney.

Zuko shifted. The sea was calm, a serene clear emerald, the small crests of the waves topped with creamy white foam.

The pain seemed to be back for good. His body had adjusted to it within the hour, but it was difficult to stay indifferent because it wouldn't remain constant. The agony kept fluctuating weirdly, spiking for a while before falling again to a—relatively—bearable level. He didn't remember it doing that before, but it could easily just be his selective memory at work.

It was currently at a low level, merely a slight—well, all right, it was a bit more than slight... _moderate—_stinging throughout his muscles and a very weak hint of that ache in his bones. But he could almost block it out at this strength.

He turned slightly, curling his lip, as the baby squealed in Iroh's lap. The round, brown little creature was crawling all over his uncle, grinning brightly. The shining green eyes were wide and fixed on the Pai Sho tile Iroh was holding. The tiny brown hands reached for the colorful tile, but kept on missing because Iroh would automatically shift his hand a bit to the left or to the right to avoid the grasping digits. The man's impressive eyebrows were furrowed as he watched th Pai Sho board, and he didn't even seem to be noticing that he was evading the kid's hands.

Zuko snorted under his breath. A few days with the kid, and already his uncle had gotten used to playing Pai Sho with it on his lap.

Really, the man was an enigma. He wasn't actually as wimpy as he always acted—Zuko _knew_ that. But why the hell would he go to the extent of taking care of an annoying brat to keep up his grandpa facade?

The prince looked back out on the water. Who cared, anyway? As long as the man kept that thing away from him, he didn't give a damn.

The sun was almost too warm on his armor, the red and black plates of it gleaming in the light.

Zuko had nothing to do. The Water Tribe kid wasn't talking, period. It would take at least a week without the brat for him to speak, Zuko guessed. And until then Zuko could only do what he had been doing before the capture; stop at each port that was sort of on their way and start searching for rumors about the Avatar.

And Fire knew what a pain that was.

°

Sokka sighed wearily and bowed his head in the sunlight. It was nice to have the warm rays soak through him.

He'd been allowed to bathe yesterday, in two buckets of freezing cold water. Well, he supposed that that had been the plan. It had ended up with him underneath the sailor who'd brought the water and at the end the sailor had used one bucket for himself.

Tch. Selfish Fire Nation guys. They really were pricks, every single one of them.

He grinned a bit at his own joke, and then he grew serious again.

The need was being really weird. Sure, he could—and had—easily get the soldier outside to fuck him whenever it came, and the guard had even taken to inviting buddies down for the night—but though it subsided slightly, it never really, truly went away. It was always still there, the ache of emptiness in his gut.

Maybe it had something to do with the fact that he only ever let the guys have him once during... well, one session or whatever. During one bout of need. Maybe if he let them do it as often as they wanted... There weren't ever many guys. The guard usually had one friend with him, and that was perfectly okay with Sokka... a second time with two would leave him very sore, but if it got rid of the need...

His eyes widened and he shook his head vehemently. No, no, _no_. The last time he'd let a guy have him twice, he'd ended up pregnant! _Pregnant!_

He leaned his head back against the harsh iron of the room wall and stared out of the porthole window. His wrists ached under the rope.

Dammit, he wanted his kid. He really, really wanted to see him, hold him, cuddle him and kiss him till the little guy was blue in the face.

Sokka hadn't seen his baby for four days now, since Zuko had brought him in. That had been a funny sight, Zuko juggling the kid in his arms and looking livid...

Zuko was only good angry. Damn, Sokka wouldn't want to see the guy happy. Ever. The asshole didn't deserve it. Taking his kid away, annoying him all the time about Aang when he didn't have a clue... he hadn't come in today, thank the Spirits, but maybe he would later.

Hopefully not.

The emptiness in his abdomen pulsed and began to strengthen. He groaned miserably.

Not again...

He looked moodily over at the slop bucket. A few flies were whirring around the dirty rim and he glanced away again. This sure wasn't the most luxurious place he'd ever been.

His body tensed and arched in response to a new rise of lust. He moaned shakily.

Dammit.

The rope bound around his wrists wasn't really restricting. The rough hemp was long enough for him to sit, stand, lie down, and use the slop bucket. He could stand up and move toward the door, and if he went as close to the iron slab as he could and kicked it, he could get the guard's attention easily.

Sokka stood and moved towards the door, kicking it. The metal echoed hollowly. "Hey!"

The guard glanced through the small slit that broke the expanse of rough metal, his narrow eyes amused. "Again?"

The kid ignored him and moved back to his seat on the floor. His body twisted as he did so, the muscles taut in need.

The soldier watched him hungrily for a few seconds before opening the door and closing it behind him.

Sokka shook his head to clear it of all the morals and things that told him that this was wrong. He'd always had to do that before indulging his lust, ever since the very beginning. But here, with these guys, it had en even more forbidden level; they were Fire Nation!

He ignored all of it and let the soldier get on with it. Dammit, he hated that the need made him so helpless. Couldn't he just... ignore it once?

A moan left his lips as the guard thrust into him and he chuckled under his ragged breath.

Ignore it, and give up on _this_?

Very funny.

°

Zuko trained. And trained some more. And then he trained... and trained. And after that? He trained!

By the time the sun was a handspan away from the blue horizon, glowing deep red, his muscles were sore beyond the stabbing of the incessant pain. The agony had spiked around noon and quickly subsided again, into an aching hum in his bones.

The crew was still on deck, eating dinner early. They saluted him in admiration when he relaxed his muscles and dropped his arms to his sides, the last tongue of flame sizzling away in the warm air. He acknowledged them with a slight nod and made his way over the creaking iron of the ship to the control room.

His uncle and the advisor had taken the table back up and were—wonder of wonders...--playing Pai Sho. The bloody red of the sun washed the room in crimson and Zuko had to squint against the glow. Once he was sitting down, he relaxed slightly and pulled a map towards him.

Unrolling the parchment, he found their current position and argued with himself about what to do.

The Avatar had been moving on a very vague and random course so far, but if all the sightings and rumors were mapped, there was a steady trail toward the northwestern corner of the parchment. Yes, the sightings were leagues apart and made absolutely no sense, but in the big picture... the Avatar was going northwest.

Zuko frowned. He'd seen the pattern before, of course, but he didn't want to risk it just yet. After all, the Water Tribe kid had been in the Earth Kingdom—that made it easy enough to surmise that the Avatar had been there too. And that was _not_ to the northwest of any of the last sightings...

A tug on his armor startled him and he whipped around. What the...

The baby giggled from where it lay on the hard wooden floor. The force of Zuko's turn had knocked it over, and now it gazed up at him with those impossibly green eyes and gurgled, "Amanamanamanjanmana." Or something like that.

Zuko muttered a curse and turned back to his map.

Thank the Fire the brat wasn't screaming as much any more. Iroh had said that it seemed sad, but Zuko didn't really care—as long as it was quiet.

"Gagagaheee!"

... and left him alone.

He turned again and glared at the round brown face that beamed up at him. The baby crawled towards him and latched onto his armor, for good this time.

Iroh and the ship's advisor were pretending to be absorbed in their game. Zuko grimaced. Damn those geezers. They just loved humiliating him. Absolutely loved it.

Bastards.

The brat was clambering all over him, finally slipping into his lap. The big curious eyes focused on his face and white teeth laughed as a small soft hand reached up and touched Zuko's scar. He tensed.

Shining green orbs blinked slowly and then the hand moved, feeling the rough scar tissue in... surprise?

Zuko hissed. Why should he care? He made to jerk away and get the kid off of himself, but the hand on his face was... warm.

The prince watched, annoyed beyond... anything... with himself, as the brat snuggled into him and the hand left his temple. The soft brown body curled up against his chest and those damned green eyes slid closed, the smiling mouth opening in a last yawn before the small excited baby breaths evened out.

Zuko watched it sleep, wondering what was wrong with him. The soft dark fuzz covering its smooth delicate skull gleamed in the red sunlight and the strange green clothing it wore sighed against the stiff plates of his armor.

His armor. He was a soldier! Not a sentimental mother-hen!

He was about to push the brat off his lap when the tiny body curled up a bit tighter and the round chin angled itself just so, fitting itself into the depression between his chest and arm.

Zuko stared at it for a bit longer, then carefully picked it up and gave it to his uncle, who promptly smothered it with kisses and woke it up. Which led to screaming and Zuko leaving the room in annoyance.

He decided to go to sleep early, drained from the training and the pain. He reached his room, lit the candles at the altar, and shed his armor. He liked the dim reddish warmth of the chamber, the dark comfort of it. It was like a den. A den for hibernation.

He dropped into bed and lay there, frustratingly awake. He just couldn't fall asleep, his eyes caught on the deep red of the Fire Nation banner. The pain roiled hard inside him.

Dammit. That brat had bothered him, the big green eyes too bright and happy.

°

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Hmm. Yes. I do think it's going well enough.

PLEASE review. I am a review WHORE.

Well, till then!


	7. Chapter 7

'Ello!!!

**Arie D: **What do you mean, 'stuff like this'... is that good or bad, honey? Sorry about the lack of communication, but you're NEVER on Yahoo when I am anymore. It sucks ass.

Here we goes with chapter 7!!!

Need

°

Sokka curled up tighter under the thin scrap of blanket that the guard had thrown him three nights ago, when they'd first entered the cold seas that the ship was belching its way through. He could hear the icy water pounding against the iron hull of the craft, and with each wave the cold, rough metal beneath him shifted to one side, pulling him with. Very dim, bluish light filtered in through the round window; it was a moonless night.

The metal beams and bolts of the ship groaned with a new wave, and Sokka grimaced as the movement of the craft pushed his body a bit forward and a hard metal bolt dug into his hip.

He sat up, the metal ring in the wall clanging as the rope around his wrists—by now, they were rubbed completely raw, red sores and scabbed-over bruises forming a purplish-crimson, swollen ring around his arm—pulled at it. The iron was icy against his back, even through the parka.

He wondered, not for the first time, where they were sailing to. The cold water and air hinted at north, but he wasn't sure—for all he knew, they could be at the South Pole. He wasn't good at estimating the distances they'd covered.

All Sokka really knew was that he'd been on the ship, in this small uncomfortable room with only the slop bucket for company, for ten days now. The need had steadily worsened, even now singing slowly inside him, and the guard had changed. It was a burly, muscular blonde now, who indulged Sokka often and gladly but had the uncomfortable habit of sneaking groups of friends in with him.

Zuko had showed up once, on the fifth day, to annoy Sokka about Aang. When Sokka had had no answers for him, he'd stormed off and Sokka hadn't seen him since—thankfully.

Sokka gathered up the blanket and draped it over his legs, trying in vain to get comfortable. He could hear the light snores of the guard outside. The torchlight was glowing beneath the door in a reddish-golden rectangle.

The child... Sokka winced and hugged himself.

He hadn't seen the child either.

It hurt so terribly, not to see his son. He bit his lip and tilted his head back, blinking tears away. The baby was on his mind whenever the need was weak enough to push aside. Two things dominated his captivity; sex and missing his son.

The thing was, Sokka also had no idea of how to get to the kid. It was obvious that Zuko didn't believe him about not knowing where Aang was; and even if, Sokka wouldn't put it past him to keep him locked up out of pure spite.

The guards had indulged Sokka, and enjoyed his body, but there was no chance of their help. They were unfailingly loyal to their commander, and Sokka had come to the surprising conclusion that the sentiment wasn't based in fear, but in honest respect for the prince.

That annoyed him. In his opinion—yes, it _was _biased, big deal—Zuko was a spoiled brat who wouldn't know compassion if it kicked him in the face. And even then, he'd probably just scorch it into the next century.

Sokka brought a cold hand to his cheek and grimaced when he felt swiftly cooling moisture tracked down his skin. Dammit, he shouldn't be giving Zuko the satisfaction of making him cry...

He huddled deeper beneath the blanket. The big green eyes of the kid came to mind and he wondered whether he'd be able to Earthbend. He wondered when he'd finally name him.

Sokka remembered one time when Aang, Katara and him—Toph hadn't been part of the crew yet—had slept in a small village somewhere in the deepest wilderness of the Earth Kingdom. They had stayed in the stall of a lady who had had so many children that she called them by numbers. It had been "Hey One, do this!" and "Three, quit beating up on Four!" all the time.

The Water Tribe teen laughed under his breath. Well, there was a difference between that and his child's namelessness. He just had no clue what to call him, and he wanted it to mean something to him.

His shoulders hunched and he tried to clear his mind, tears threatening again. It wasn't good to ponder his child's name when he was missing him so much. The prickling behind his eyelids intensified and he huffed an impatient curse at his weakness.

°

Sokka had somehow ended up falling asleep after all. He awoke to the screeching of the door's hinges—the cold made them even less mobile—and the sound of a baby gurgling happily.

_His _baby gurgling happily.

His eyes snapped open and he sat up in an instant, the blanket falling off his shoulders. The thin sunlight that fell in through the window gave the room a strange, twilight quality, the iron's reddish and black colors sharply defined in the pale light. The bolts that were fastened in straight, even lines on the floor threw stark shadows on the grainy metal beneath them.

The door creaked open wider, and the guard came first, carrying a steaming tin bowl of the usual slush that counted as Sokka's 'breakfast'. He left again and the baby's cries grew a bit louder out in the corridor.

Sokka stood and cried, his voice still hoarse from sleep -- "Give me the kid!"

The old man who always traveled with Zuko stepped in out of the gloom of the unlit corridor. The baby, dressed and wrapped in warm red things, crowed happily and reached out to Sokka, his big emerald eyes bright and locked on the Water Tribe teen's face.

The old man was smiling his usual, irritatingly absent smile and was dressed warmly. He inclined his head to Sokka.

The need was thrumming a bit higher than it had been during the night, but it wasn't even close to critical yet, thankfully. That would have been the last straw in his misfortune...

Sokka glowered up at the old man. "Give me the child," he hissed.

The man—what_ was_ his name again?--smiled wider and handed the baby to him carefully.

Sokka's arms closed almost reverently around his son, his hands gripping the soft clothing, and he slid down against the wall into a comfortable crouch. The child laughed gaily and buried his nose into Sokka's chest. Sokka winced, biting his lip to keep from whimpering aloud—without the child there, his nipples had grown tender and irritated. It seemed that id the baby didn't feed off of him for a while, something went wrong.

Sokka moved the baby's head up a bit higher, tilting his round chin up and rubbing their noses together in a quick Eskimo kiss. The baby's nub of a nose was warm against his cold one, and the tiny white teeth—barely a few weeks old—glowed in the dark skin of his round face as he laughed something in garbled baby-speak.

Sokka pulled him close and whispered nonsense into the warm, fragrant softness of his skull.

He'd almost completely forgotten about the man, and started slightly when the deep, sonorous voice said into the cold air, "I thought it would do him good to see his companion again. Children shouldn't be separated for this long from their... guardians." Curiosity was apparent in the man's expression as he hesitated to designate Sokka's connection to the child.

Sokka curled his lip at him and said coldly, "You didn't seem to mind taking him away from me, grandpa. Don't act so high and holy!"

The man looked falsely sheepish and said, "Yes, well, he is so adorable, I couldn't resist..."

"You hadn't even seen him before you took him away, you liar!"

The guard poked his head in all of a sudden, yelling at Sokka, "Stop insulting his Greatness, General Iroh, prisoner!"

Ah, that was his name. Sokka gave the guard a glare and then ignored him.

Iroh didn't react to Sokka's statement and said, "Well, my nephew told me you had a child with you, and I thought that it wouldn't do to compromise its health by leaving it here... so I took it up to the warmth!" his smile was wide and friendly.

Sokka snarled at him. "You can tell your nephew that he's wasting his time keeping me in here. I have no idea where the Avatar is, and there's no reason to hold me prisoner at all—I've stopped traveling with them _ages_ ago, dammit!"

The man suddenly sat down on the floor a few feet away from Sokka, and said incredulously, "_Really?_ He didn't tell me that you'd said anything like that. Hmm... what a mess."

The baby squirmed around in Sokka's grip, trying to find the opening in his tunic—the parka was open already. The constant shifting chafed at his irritated nipples, and he picked the child up, holding him in the air with his hands beneath his arms. "Quit wiggling around like that, kid."

The baby screwed its face up and whimpered. Sokka shook his head. "No, don't you cry now. I'm sure this General-guy here has fed you already, what with his big words about taking good care of you."

The man looked up from arranging his robes for maximum warmth over the swell of his large belly and interjected indignantly, "Of course I have!"

Sokka grunted skeptically under his breath and pulled the child back into his embrace.

The man smiled widely—again—and said, "So... you seem quite attached to Hato-chan. May I ask why?"

"No, and—_Hato-chan_?"

A merry chuckle. "Well, you see... the ship's advisor's name is Haton, and he's always wanted a grandson--"

Sokka closed is eyes and muttered, "Please tell me you're kidding."

"No." Another wide grin.

°

Zuko was sitting in the control room, poring over the maps and the newest reports sent from his contacts around the world, a mug of tea in one hand. The ship's advisor was playing Pai-Sho against himself. The room was warm from the burning coal next door and the view of the tossing gray sea and the cold blue sky was breathtaking, if you had the kind of useless appreciation needed to admire it. The sun was a reddish tint behind a thick bank of clouds, sinking rapidly towards the sea.

Both men looked up when the door to the room opened and Iroh walked in, the tip of his nose slightly red and the baby bouncing in his arms.

"Where were you, sir?" the ship's advisor asked irritably. "Playing alone is tedious."

Zuko didn't look up from his maps as Iroh walked past him. The older man's deep voice said gaily, "Oh, I was visiting the Water Tribe boy. A very interesting child."

Zuko jumped to his feet. "You did _what?_"

Iroh smiled serenely up at him. "Well, Hato-chan was getting very restless and sad, and I decided to cheer him up by giving him a bit of time with his guardian."

Zuko felt fire spring through his body, the pain that hissed through his bones thrumming dangerously. "Uncle! Why are you undermining all of my attempts to get something out of him? I _need_ him in order to find the Avatar!"

Iroh looked up from where he had just placed his first tile onto the Pai Sho board. The brat lying in his lap followed his example, the huge green eyes locking onto Zuko's face.

Zuko's uncle smiled, his eyes closing, and said, "The boy doesn't know anything, Zuko. Besides," he shifted the brat on his lap, "You're doing fine without information from him. You've narrowed the Avatar's position down to only a few islands--"

"And the whole Eastern Sea!"

Iroh just made a placating gesture and said calmly, "Believe me, nephew... the boy can't help you."

Zuko snarled and his hands curled into fists, his arms trembling with the exertion of not releasing fire. His uncle was so... _infuriating_!

The pain spiked all of a sudden and Zuko had to clamp iron control down on his whole body to keep from groaning. He couldn't remember it ever being this bad. Not—_ever_.

A tug on his pant leg forced his still furious, agony-blurred gaze to the floor.

Those disturbingly green eyes laughed up at him, too carefree and innocent to be normal, to be safe--

He snarled again and half-stumbled, half-ran out of the room, the confused call of his uncle drifting after him and the whimper of the brat as it lost its support and tumbled onto the floor drifting after him.

The pain was a haze and his anger just seemed to fuel it. He didn't really know where he was going, only that the ache seemed to get marginally better.

°

Sokka groaned softly. The old man had left with the kid a half an hour or so ago, after hours of talking about the most random stuff and playing with the child together. He'd been pretty cool, in retrospect.

He'd allowed him to take the kid away without a struggle, for one because he'd been so friendly and seemed to be okay with the baby, and secondly because it was just too cold down here for a child that young. It made much more sense for him to be up there in the warmth.

Sokka whimpered repeatedly as need throbbed through him, the ache deep in his body and blood. He glanced up to where the torchlight fell in through the little slit in the door, but then another wave of need, stronger than he'd _ever_ felt it before, crashed over him. His abdomen felt as though it were being ripped out of him, the emptiness painful beyond his worst nightmares--

He couldn't even get to his feet, and his mouth was pressed together in a thin line—if he let himself, he would be screaming into the cold room. His eyes found the opposite wall of the room, where the red glow of the setting sun reflected off the iron door, and he tried to focus on it, but the ache inside him was too much.

He vaguely heard the door screech open, and guessed in relief that the guard had heard his writhing whimpers and was coming to... help him out.. With a lot of effort, he focused his eyes on the person coming in.

Flaming gold met his gaze and he gasped. Not now, dammit. Why did he have to come now?

He vaguely noticed that the door was slamming shut behind the person, and that they were moving closer and closer, much too close for when he was in this state--

Sokka gasped breathlessly as pale, strong hands grabbed his shoulders.

The hoarse, cold voice rasped, "Damn it."

Sokka arched up, the ache inside him too much to bear. "Please--" he gasped, and he didn't even know who or what he was begging for.

Golden eyes darkened and flashed with something that looked familiar to him.

Need.

He whimpered as his parka was pushed off of him roughly. Calloused pale hands pushed up his tunic and he fell back against the wall, his legs spread around the lean, muscular form crouching on the cold floor.

"_Damn _it," Zuko gasped again, and his hands tore at Sokka's trousers. The teen hurriedly struggled out of them, pain lancing through him as the need rose even further.

He heard the ring of metal buckles and the rustle of clothing through a helpless haze, his body arching with each new wave of lust, and then hot skin was sliding against his and the cold was gone and the need was almost subsiding, he only—only one more movement and--

Sokka's eyes widened and he cried out as Zuko thrust hard and fast, without any preparation or being careful. His hands dug into pale sweat-slicked shoulders and he locked one leg around slim hips, arching up as the pain cleared his mind and the need--

The pain of the need subsided with each hard, violent thrust, the hard iron against his back becoming more and more real as Zuko pressed farther, harder, faster--

Sokka's breath was coming as sobbing pants and his body stiffened and tensed each time Zuko's muscles shifted and his hips pounded forward. The Firebender's pale, sinewy body moved with savage grace and his eyes were clouded with lust, his hands vice-like on Sokka's hips.

The prince leaned down and his thrusts grew even harder, the hoarse dangerous rasp of his voice brushing over Sokka's ear, ragged and deadly-- "Curse you, you're so—so damn—_tight_--"

Sokka moaned loudly and his other leg wrapped around the Firebender as he angled his thrusts more—_there_ and even more pleasure radiated through his spine, heat pouring through his veins and coiling tight in his muscles, tense and expectant. Zuko snarled and the next thrust was violent enough to scrape Sokka's shoulder blades open against the coarse wall. The rope around his wrists chafed as he tightened his hold on the pale, smooth shoulders.

Sokka arched, feeling silky hardness hit his prostrate with all of Zuko's weight. He threw his head back and his climax released with a soundless shriek, his mouth open wide and his whole body tensing, releasing, tensing, releasing--

°

Zuko groaned harshly and buried himself in tight velvety warmth one last time, the taut muscle gripping him bringing him over an edge he didn't know existed in this intensity.

He caught himself on the wall with one hand as the waves of his climax shuddered through him. His breathing was ragged and his eyes glowed with the proximity of fire—he started out of his satisfied trance as the iron began to bend under his palm.

In his bliss, he'd begun Bending without realizing it.

Zuko stared at the half-melted metal for long seconds, registering what had just happened.

His eyes shifted down to where Sokka lay, his legs no longer clamped around his waist, eyes closed and arms thrown over his stomach... he was unconscious.

What had come over him? Why was he... Why had he... _What was going on?_

The pain had guided him here, and he'd just... gone with what had made it less. His hands had found warm brown skin and then even hotter silkiness...

Zuko slid out of the boy, not bothering to be careful. The slender brown form shifted a bit, a quiet murmur leaving soft lips. He grabbed his shirt and pulled it back on, his hands working mechanically as his mind tried to grasp what had happened. He laced his trousers closed and was contemplating buckling on his armor when he realized...

The pain was gone.

It hadn't just subsided, as he'd grown used to. It was completely gone. His muscles and bones were feeling normal and healthy, as he knew from the year without agony.

He stared down at the Water Tribe teen's prone form, mind working furiously.

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Hmm. Well?

Like it? Hate it?

Want more?

Review!!!


	8. Chapter 8

'Ello!!!

lalala. I'm really glad you all like this so much!

Need

°

Hmm... soft... he shifted, burrowing deeper into the soft warmth. It was... fluffy. No, that wasn't it. Springy. Yeah, that was right. Like a bed.

A real bed, no more iron bolts poking into him—NO MORE IRON BOLTS?

Sokka sat up with a start. The sheet slid off his shoulders and he shivered slightly. Where the hell were his clothes?

No, wait. Where the hell was _he?_

It was dim in the room, wherever it was, a row of candles burning slowly before a massive Fire Nation banner providing the only illumination. The bed he was lying in was functional and simple, but it felt like heaven after more than a week of sleeping on cold rusting metal.

He scrubbed at his eyes, trying to remember what was going on. Moving to slide off the bed, he let out a pained cry when cold metal bit into his wrist.

Sokka turned around and his eyes caught on the gleam of a steel ring around his wrist, welded to length of equally shiny chain. The heavy, clanging links were locked onto the simple headboard of the bed.

The faint twinge in his lower back as he shifted back to lessen the tension on the metal around his wrist brought everything slamming back. Sokka groaned under his breath, covering his eyes with his free hand and letting himself flop down on the bed.

Oh _hell._

He had utterly lost control. He'd gone after Zuko, dammit! ZUKO!

A shudder coursed down his spine as he remembered. And it had been... well. It had been amazing.

But still, this was _Zuko_. And now here he was, in a real—and very foreign--bed, with no idea of how he'd gotten there. He shook his head despairingly. No, no, no! He was such an idiot!

To let the need control him like that! It had been in his life for ages now, he should be able to control it at least a bit, just clamp down on it when it became necessary--

He froze. Now that he thought about it... where was it? It hadn't gone away completely for days now, and he was sure that it had to...

It was gone. The need was completely gone. Not even a slight hint of its return—nothing.

Sokka smiled slowly. It was gone! Amazing. He tried to punch the air in triumph, but the chain bit deep into his skin again and he had to stifle a cry, slowly lowering his arm again.

So where was he? The last thing he remembered was climaxing in the cold dark of the cell he'd been in, and Zuko's panting—he snarled a curse as the memory sent a thrill through his spine. He'd been crazy with need, dammit! It wasn't as if he'd have liked it otherwise. It made no sense to dwell on it now.

...right?

Muttering fervent oaths, he peered around the room. There was nothing remotely personal in it, mainly weapons and such. The bed was the only furniture, aside from the low shelf on which the row of silently sputtering candles stood.

It felt comfortable, though—like a den. Warm.

°

Iroh came into the control room slowly, the baby squirming in his grasp. "Zuko, I was just down to see the Water Tribe boy, and the guard told me you'd taken him away last night. He seemed quite fluste--"

Zuko looked hard at his maps and snapped, "I've moved him to somewhere where it's easier to interrogate him."

Iroh peered over his shoulder. Zuko hated the feeling of someone leaning over his back, utterly hated it. The baby's hands tangled and pulled at his hair as Iroh murmured innocently, "Why are you looking at the map upside down?"

Zuko controlled himself with great effort, folding the map jerkily. The ship's advisor was sick with the flu—the cold here around the North Pole was debilitating—and had stayed in bed. The sky was a clear cold blue outside the windows, and the crew was hurrying over the deck only in cases of real necessity.

Iroh moved away, forcing Zuko to part painfully with a few strands of hair as he pulled the baby away. Zuko glared down at the folded parchment on the table in front of him and his hands curled into fists, fire coursing through him.

He didn't know what had possessed him to take the kid to his room.

Well, no. He _did_ know why, though it was a theory only and he didn't have any proof whatsoever.

It seemed that fucking Sokka had killed Zuko's pain, and he wasn't disinclined to test the theory. And though it made sense to keep the kid locked up, he didn't really enjoy cold metal on his skin. A bed was much more comfortable.

Zuko was still debating with himself on whether he wanted the hypothesis to end up true or not. He was leaning toward wanting it not to be true, but... it had been great sex, and if he had a legitimate reason to repeat it...

No! No, it had to be false. This was the insolent, irritating, ignorant, rude Water Tribe brat—not just anyone. It was _the _bane of Zuko's existence. While it had used to be the Avatar, the Water Tribe kid had proved to be a larger pain in the ass with his inscrutable silence and the annoying comments... and not to mention the fact that he was responsible for the presence of that brat... in short, the theory had to be wrong.

Zuko unfolded the maps again and traced the line between the newest sightings of the Avatar's massive beast—it seemed that a whale-hunting ship had seen the creature gliding farther north. It was a direct hint, and there simply weren't very many places where they could be headed... so Zuko had decided to take the risk and follow their supposed course.

He looked back up from the paper. The baby was gurgling happy nonsense as Iroh prepared the twisted piece of cloth that he fed it with daily, dipping it into a bowl of warm milk. The cow that they'd dragged on board in the Earth Kingdom had been stashed away in the hold, to keep it from freezing to death.

Zuko stood restlessly. He wanted to train, to get rid of all the pent-up energy from all the thinking he'd been doing all night and morning. He'd barely slept, lying awake next to the quiet form of the Water Tribe kid—what was his name? Had Zuko ever known it?

He stiffened. He didn't need to know the kid's name! What was wrong with him? As if the name mattered. If the theory was wrong, the kid would go back down to his cell anyway, and if it turned out to be true...

Zuko waved that thought away.

°

Sokka's stomach was grumbling.

And he could feel a warning ache in his bones, a familiar and irritating hum and vibration through his veins.

The need was coming back.

Dammit.

He was trying to keep track of the time by the light filtering through beneath the Fire Nation banner—it seemed that the dark cloth, starkly red and black, covered a window or something. If he was right, then it was around noon.

Sokka hugged himself as best as he could, wincing as the chain chafed at his arm.

He missed his child, he was utterly miserable because he'd let his archenemy fuck the need away—though he _had _done a very good job of it... No, bad thoughts, very bad!--and he was hungry. Sokka groaned under his breath as a faint twinge below his stomach alerted him that the need was going to hit hard any time now.

Dammit, now that he'd let Zuko... why hadn't the Fire Nation asshole at least done a good job of it? Sokka refused to acknowledge the nagging voice that told him that Zuko's... actions... had done much more good than the other guys had managed, because—well, just because. Because no matter what, Zuko was Zuko. And an asshole, since he was Zuko, because being Zuko meant that he could only be an assho--

Sokka forced himself back under control and pulled moodily at the metal cuff around his wrist. The need was building slowly and steadily in his lower back and his spine was vibrating with the rising ache.

Dammit!

He'd come to the conclusion that the separation from his child was strengthening the need to these new heights. If only he could see him, feed him, and most importantly get him unused to that stupid name again—HATO-CHAN? Really... The irritating and painful pressure on his nipples was getting more and more aggravating, and he didn't want them to suddenly start—he grimaced—_leaking_ or something disgusting like that.

The need clawed its way through his spine, and he bit his lip. Well, it seemed as though his hopes for the need's disappearance had been ungrounded. Damn that Zuko, couldn't even fuck him right...

He looked up, straining to keep his expression neutral, as the door of the room—iron, what else...--creaked open and a very familiar, very hated Firebender stalked in. The door closed behind him.

Sokka tried to control his need, snarling, "What the hell is going on? Let me out of here, Zuko!"

The Firebender ignored him, not even deigning to answer, walking to the bed and looking down at him. The dim red light danced starkly over the livid scar, shifting and dancing with the candles behind the prince. Sokka watched the Firebender begin to loosen his armor and realized in vague horror that he really didn't mind.

°

Zuko wondered somewhere at the back of his mind—below the screaming, sawing pain—why the kid was so quiet all of a sudden. He dropped the last of his armor and looked up, reaching for the smooth brown skin.

The kid arched into him and Zuko briefly asked himseld whether he had some kind of reaction as well... but then the pain stabbed into him and his fingers bit hard into the kid's skin. The blue eyes widened and a soft moan sounded into the haze of agony.

Zuko snarled breathlessly and forced the boy onto all fours, his eyes flicking to where the chain held him tight, straining against a slender brown wrist. Long dark hair tumbled over the tense back in front of him, the skin glowing in the gloom. The kid begged.

Zuko leaned over him, reaching into thick tangled hair and gripping soft strands. Dark chocolaty skin shifted, the long spine arched, and a soft cry tumbled into the room.

He was completely ruled by the pain by now, and he didn't think anymore, his next coherent thought a breathless gasp as he finally, _finally _thrust into tight sweet heat—so fucking—_good_.

The boy moaned, a shivering sound that sent a bolt of excitement through Zuko's bones, and he forced himself in again. Slender hips bucked up into him, and the boy's one hand was clamped onto the manacled wrist, his cheek pressed against the mattress and his eyes closed tightly. The high dusky cheekbones were flushed, and sensuous lips gasped for air and—something.

Zuko thrust hard, the pleasure of it all overwhelming, his hands tight in soft hair and on a sharp smooth hip, clenched in dark strands and skin. The fire inside him was burning higher and higher, heat curling inside him, thickening and tensing--

The kid groaned harshly as Zuko thrust especially hard, trying to bury himself fully, the heat maddening around him--

A helpless scream sounded in the dim warmth, and the kid's whole body tensed, muscles standing out in his back and his head rising up from the bed in ecstasy, back arching sharply. The perfect smooth warmth around Zuko pulsed and tautened, clamping down on him before loosening again, and then tightening once more, repeating the cycle over and over until Zuko lost control and climaxed with a groan, barely managing to catch himself on the mattress.

He stayed like that, panting, the last waves of his orgasm crashing through him. Once again he started, surprised, as the sheet caught on fire. He'd Bended again. He watched the flame creep towards the slender, shuddering figure beneath him.

The kid noticed it a split second later and yelled, "Zuko! Get the fire--"

Zuko laughed inwardly. Always so... excitable. He called the flame to his hand and let is disappear, leaving only a dark gash behind on the pristine sheet.

He pulled out of the kid, ignoring the pained groan, and reached for the clothes he'd thrown off, dressing slowly. He didn't want to dwell on the figure in the bed, nor did he want to look at him now—because the kid'd probably be still breathing heavily, hair in a cloud around his shoulders, cheeks flushed, body sweat-slicked and—Agh!

Zuko shook his head slightly and cursed himself. So stupid, to have brought the boy here, just because of a theory that wasn't even true...

He froze.

Oh, hell.

The pain was gone.

His hands stilled on the buckle he'd been closing and he glared into the mesmerizing flame of the candles.

What now? The pain was completely gone, as he'd hoped wouldn't happen. Maybe it was just the sex? Maybe all he needed was a whore every now and then to keep it away?

Yes, he'd try it with a whore. It had to be that, right? Just the sex. Because what could be so special about an ignorant Water Tribe teen? An _irritating_, ignorant Water Tribe teen, at that.

An annoyed mutter came from behind him. "Zuko, I'm STARVING."

Yes, it had to be the sex.

°

°

°

Okeedoke, sorry about the long wait, but school's started again... yeah.

So this is the... denial chapter. Isn't it annoying how predictable it all is?

Oh well.

You like?

PLEASE REVIEW.


	9. Chapter 9

'Ello!!!

lalala. I'm really glad you all like this so much!

Need

°

Sokka woke to a familiar chattering somewhere above him. Opening his eyes wide, he stared up into Momo's massive limpid eyes and nearly fell off the bed.

"Momo! Where have you been?"

The lemur chattered gleefully and dropped down from the ceiling and into Sokka's lap.

Sokka looked at the door in worry, but in the five days or so that he'd been kept in this room with Zuko, the Firebender had never even once interrupted his routine. Sokka doubted he'd do so now. He grinned down at the animal and squeezed it in a hug. Ever since he'd been dragged off here, the lemur had disappeared—and even back down in the cell, it'd gone missing for hours at a time.

"You had me worried!" Well, when he wasn't waiting for Zuko to fuck him or worrying his heart out about the baby...

He let Momo curl up in his lap and snooze off, and then he lay back down. The bed was nice and soft on his bare skin—clothes were still a faraway hope—and he got better food up here. This morning he'd even had real salted meat with his rice.

However, this made it almost two weeks with only a few hours of seeing his baby. Or had it been three?

He curled up as best as he could with Momo snoring away in his lap and the chain biting into his wrist. His nipples really truly _hurt_ now, and he missed the child so much that it hurt even to think about him, what he'd be doing at the moment, whether he was playing and smiling or crawling around and...

Fuck! Zuko would not make him cry!

Sokka wiped a stray tear away and stared at the wall in front of him, tracing the rust tracks in the iron with his eyes.

He was a little freaked out about the fact that he was having so much sex with Zuko, but so far it had never been more than once consecutively, so he thought he was safe. Well, he hoped so. Spirits knew it wouldn't be the first time he was in for a nasty shock in the last year.

... he sighed in annoyance. He was lying in here all day long, with _nothing_ to do, and he couldn't even sleep anymore because he'd already had so much of it. Zuko always gave him this kind of skeptical grunt whenever he asked to be let out—even only for a few minutes'd be fine, just to be OUT...

Sokka sat up again as footsteps sounded in the corridor. He quickly pushed Momo off the side of the bed, and the lemur chattered indignantly. Sokka gestured for it to shush, and the door creaked open.

Sokka reached for the sheet, pulling it up to cover himself. Was it already time for the midday meal? Strange, the time had passed quickly...

The sailor who brought him his meals was a youngish, slender man that was missing his left hand as well as the bottom half of his right leg. He was always very friendly, even if he did make too many cracks about Zuko and Sokka and their...arrangement.

He came hobbling in now, carrying a tray with a steaming bowl and a cup on it. Setting it down on the bed, he said, grinning, "That makes two gold pieces!"

Sokka laughed and flipped him off. "Where are we?" he gestured to the side of the ship.

The man shrugged, squinting up at the ceiling. "Somewhere in the Western Sea, I think... but don't take my word for it."

"No worries, I won't."

The man laughed and left the room, the door closing with a foreboding slam.

°

"Oh no, you've had me again, sir!" The ship's advisor sounded irritated.

Iroh chuckled deeply and Zuko could see him grinning in his mind. "Another game?"

The baby was asleep in the little cot Iroh had gotten the sailors to make, the disturbingly green eyes closed and soft breathing shivering in and out of smooth tiny nostrils.

The sun was setting outside, and Zuko was pleasantly tired from having trained and carried loads on deck all morning—they'd come across a floating trading post the day before, and had stocked up on rice and meat.

He was ignoring his maps, because he hadn't gotten one of those threatening letters from Azula again and the time pressure had been lifted a little. He rubbed at his scar—it ached whenever the weather changed, and sailing down from the North Pole into the Western Sea had started a sort of stinging pain around his eye.

He glanced up as the baby spluttered awake, and huge green eyes met his. The child gurgled happily, flailing small round fists in the air.

Zuko looked back down to his book.

He heard Iroh coo over the brat and snarled under his breath. Pathetic.

The baby always made him think of the kid lying chained to his bedpost, and he hated that. The Water Tribe teen was good for relieving the pain, and the only reason he was still there was because no one else on the ship was even remotely attractive to Zuko, and because there was no port or whore close by.

Zuko hissed in anger as the slight thrum that had been growing in his bones all day spiked a little. Damn.

He got up and went to the door, seeing Iroh cuddling the baby out of the corner of his eye. His Uncle called to him,"Zuko? Where is the Water Tribe boy? He should see Hato-chan again, since he seems so attached to him."

Zuko ignored him, and as he left the room he heard Iroh murmur in amusement, "Ah...teenagers."

The teenager in question narrowed his eyes and stalked down towards his chamber, the pain growing in his muscles. The dark corridor was smoky still from the torches that had been hanging during their time in the North Sea, and deserted; most of the crew was on deck, enjoying the warmth.

He pushed open his room door.

The boy was asleep, lying curled up with one arm stretched out uncomfortably above his head, pulled taut by the length of the chain. Zuko thought he saw something jumping away up to the ceiling, but by now the pain was humming strong and he ignored it.

The boy awoke quickly, suddenly, as Zuko moved towards him, and his eyes were wide sapphires, his breath short and fast.

They collapsed easily into each other—by now, Zuko knew the kid's body well, and it was almost second nature to press his legs apart and slide into tight bliss. The boy groaned and arched into him.

Zuko bit his lip as the pain finally, finally let down a bit, and he thrust deep. The boy shrieked and his hips shifted and lifted to impale himself further.

The dancing light of the candles grew as Zuko moved into and out of that tight, tight heat, his hands supporting himself on the bed and his breath broken panting. With each hot stroke, the pain subsided more, until he could feel his climax building, building and so close--

The boy moaned softly and came, arching up into Zuko.

Zuko growled as heat tightened further around him, and he thrust deep and hard, his orgasm tearing through him.

He started Bending, as always, and drew back, turning to sit over the edge of the bed. Behind him the boy's breathing slowly calmed, and then-- "Oh _shit_."

Zuko glanced over at him.

The boy was holding his arms over his chest, and he looked frightened. "Fuck," he muttered.

"What?" Zuko asked.

The boy shook his head. "I—let me see the baby. Now! I mean it."

Zuko moved closer, and the boy shrank back, trying to twist away. "Please, Zuko!"

Zuko easily overpowered him and pushed his arms up above his head. "What's going o--"

His eyes widened, and the boy cursed viciously, struggling ineffectually. Finally he gave up, and his head turned away. A long string of oaths hissed from his lips.

"What the hell?" Zuko muttered, letting go of the boy's chained arm to reach down and touch the trail of liquid on the golden brown chest.

The boy arched and moaned. "D-don't! Ah!"

The fluid tasted sweet when Zuko licked his finger. He stared again as another trickle left the boy's nipple. "What is this?"

The boy shook his head frantically. "Please, please just let me see the baby. Please!"

Zuko let him go completely, and suddenly it all clicked.

The boy stared up at him fearfully.

Zuko got up and dressed as much as he needed to before almost hurrying out of the room.

°

Sokka groaned. No, no, no, no!

What the hell was this?

How much bad luck could one person _have_?

Now Zuko knew, he was sure—the guy wasn't stupid, no matter how much Sokka wanted him to be—the expression on his face had said everything.

Gah, and now this was going to get even worse because Zuko would know just how _much _leverage the baby was, and he'd know what a freak Sokka--

Sokka curled up in a little ball as much as the chain would allow, and didn't acknowledge Momo's worried chatter as it stroked his back.

°

°

°

Hmm. Well?

I'm EXTREMELY SORRY for the delay, and I don't have any excuse, either. I was basically lazy.

PLEASE REVIEW!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

XD


	10. Chapter 10

Phew, it's been a whiiiiiiile!

Alaska swallowed me and wouldn't let me go!!

Now I'm back in Berlin, with regular Internet, and hopefully I can get this fic back on track... I really want to!

All right, let's try this out.

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Need

The Pai-Sho board was unattended for once, Iroh and the ship advisor concentrating on their tea and feeding the brat. Zuko had laid out his maps in front of him, but his thoughts were a few rooms away, with the frightened eyes of the Water Tribe boy.

Was it possible? Zuko had never heard of a man having a child, but there really was no other explanation. There had been no girl with him, but that didn't have to mean much... Then again, he enjoyed sex with men, there was no mistaking that.

Zuko hissed. It wasn't really important, anyway, was it? The kid was there to kill the pain, nothing else. He didn't have to worry about anything else to do with him, except any knowledge he had about the Avatar. Though even the prince was starting to believe the kid had no idea about the Avatar's whereabouts.

"Zuko!" Iroh said. "Hato-chan has been fussy all day. Can't you take him to the boy?" His eyes were twinkling in the kind of way that meant he was up to something. And Iroh's schemes usually ended up being irritating.

Zuko snarled under his breath, about to tell his uncle that there was no way that the kid was going to see the baby. But then he remembered the way the boy's eyes had pleaded with him, and got up from his seat.

He was not doing this for the kid, no... he was...

Ah, _fuck_.

He took the squirming, whining brat from Iroh with an annoyed grimace. "Fire curse this."

Iroh just smiled benignly up at him, that infernal twinkle still in his eyes. He turned back to his tea and said in an amused tone, stopping Zuko on his way to the door, "And do let that boy out of your room once in a while, Zuko... it isn't healthy."

Zuko groaned inwardly, fighting down an embarrassing blush. Of course his uncle would have found out that the kid was in his bedroom... hells.

He stalked out the door and down the corridors. Thankfully there weren't too many men around; it was almost sundown over the cold sea, and the sailors were all eating dinner.

The pain had been calm since the last time he'd seen the boy, which meant that he could avoid any contact for a while to mull over what the hell had happened that afternoon. The kid's scared eyes had stirred something inside the prince, he wasn't sure what.

He had been keeping the fact that the child was his own from Zuko, and pretty well, too. Though it would have been quite a leap of the imagination for Zuko to guess that he was the child's... mother?... anyway.

The brat was still whining, squirming irritatingly in his arms. Zuko looked down at it skeptically. If Sokka was its 'mother', then was there a father? How the hell did this male mother thing work?

He was going to have to, oh horror of horrors, ask Iroh about this.

Zuko pushed open the door of his chamber. The kid was curled up on the bed, and looked asleep from here. Zuko closed the door and muttered, "Wake up."

The kid uncurled from his almost fetal position and sat up slowly. "I am up--" he started, eyes widening when he saw the brat in Zuko's arms. He stretched out his free arm. "Please, can I..."

Zuko tsked in annoyance and handed the baby over to him. The brat cooed happily as the kid cradled him to his chest. Blue eyes met Zuko's, and a little blush spread over dusky cheekbones as the kid murmured, "Uh... could you..."

"What?" Zuko asked, exasperated.

"Could you turn around!" The kid snapped, blush darkening.

Zuko raised an eyebrow. "Why should I?"

"Because..." the boy's voice trailed off, and he mumbled something under his breath.

The prince let out an explosive breath and turned his back to the kid on the bed. The brat was whining softly and after a few moments it quieted down. Zuko swallowed hard. The sounds of suckling seemed loud in the quiet, dim room.

This was insane. He risked a glance over his shoulder.

The kid was cuddling the baby to his chest, and the brat's mouth was latched onto one brown, soft nipple, big green eyes closed tightly and its little fists curled in the boy's hair. The sharp blue eyes were watching the baby happily, a little smile on soft lips.

Crap.

From now on, the brat would be here almost all day, Zuko decided, because it shut the kid up. Not, of course, because that smile was beyond cute.

Of course not.

Zuko envisioned a big, metal-armored fist in his face. He was hopeless. This fucking kid was going to drive him nuts pretty soon, and not in the good way.

Oh no, he seemed to have finished the job already, driving him nuts the good way. Otherwise that damn smile would not be catching his eye.

°

Sokka stroked the baby's soft head gently. The hair had grown, the dark hair curling softly by now. The eyes seemed even brighter, and the child was losing some of his extra roundness, limbs starting to lengthen towards toddler size.

He was almost four months old now; he really needed a name. A name better than 'Hato-chan'.

Honestly, what the hell?

The child's feeding was steadily taking the aching pressure away, and Sokka breathed a quiet sigh of relief and switched him to the other nipple.

Zuko was silent, still standing with his back to him. Sokka wondered what the hell had possessed him to all of a sudden bring the baby down; after this afternoon, he'd expected some new interrogation, some more using the child as leverage. Now that the Fire Nation teen knew about... all that...

"So..." Sokka muttered, hesitating.

Zuko turned to look at him, eyes skipping over the baby, and Sokka hissed, "Hey!" He hadn't ever fed the baby in front of someone else; it felt weird when he knew someone was watching him.

The Fire Nation prince made an exasperated sound and turned back around. "What?"

"Um... I... thanks, I guess." Sokka didn't really know what to say. The simple fact that his baby was back in his arms after almost three weeks was so amazing and wonderful, he could even say thank you to _Zuko_. That had to be a big deal.

Zuko twitched one shoulder. "Can I turn around yet?"

As if on cue, the baby stopped suckling and cuddled closer to Sokka. Sokka pulled his tunic back down and nodded. "Sure."

Zuko turned around and crossed his arms over his chest. "You can keep it here, unless..." He glanced away, almost blushing.

Sokka nodded and couldn't keep back his chuckle. "Well, obviously—I mean... thanks."

"Don't. It was my uncle's idea."

Yeah fucking right. That was a definite blush right there. Sokka chuckled again. He'd never thought that Zuko could actually be... cute.

Zuko gestured towards the kid, a hesitant sort of movement with one hand. "So that's... yours?"

Well, sort of cute. Really... 'that'?

Sokka grimaced. "_He _is mine, yeah."

The prince nodded, ignoring Sokka's frown, and they were quiet for a while, both at a loss for words.

Zuko sat down on the bed, Sokka scooted back, made space. The baby was falling asleep, eyelids fluttering. Sokka smiled down at him. His son! How he had missed him...!

"Hey."

Sokka looked up, straight into narrow golden eyes. "What?"

"What's your name?" The prince's eyebrows were furrowed, as if he wasn't sure whether it was a good idea to ask that.

Sokka stared at him, open-mouthed. "You... you don't know my _name_?"

Zuko shrugged slightly. "No."

The Water Tribe teen closed his mouth, opened it again. "My name's Sokka," he muttered.

Zuko hadn't known his name? How weird was that? Sokka had to laugh a little to himself. That was so Zuko. Not knowing his name, and not caring, either...

Damn, he was a real asshole, wasn't he?

Sokka chuckled under his breath and reached out, punched the prince's arm lightly without even thinking about it. Zuko's head whipped around to face him. "What the hell?"

Sokka bit his lip. Oops. Maybe that had been a bad idea. "Uh, it's a friendly punch? It's, uh, something friends... do..."

Something friends do? What was wrong with Sokka?

Not much, he realized. He'd just gotten used to Zuko by now, obviously.

Zuko stared at him, then looked away again.

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Haha, well, it wasn't that great, but it only took me like half an hour to write it, so... go easy on me!

Next chap: the kid will Bend by accident, Zuko will get jealous, and Iroh will scheme!

REVIEW PLEASE!


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